Life’s menu: Curry, cricket, community
Curry, cricket and community – those were the pillars, along with his family, around which Christchurch restaurant owner Mohammed Imran Khan built his life.
Originally from the Indian city of Hyderabad, he made it his mission to bring the taste of his home town to New Zealand – in particular his speciality, a biryani.
That signature curry dish, brought to the masses through his Edgeware takeaway restaurant Indian Grill, occasionally found its way to the stomachs of friends at the Masjid Al Noor on Deans Ave, where he was a devout worshipper and also lived nearby.
But Khan was praying at the Linwood mosque last Friday when he was killed with six others after a gunman opened fire during jumu’ah, the congregational prayer. Another victim died later at hospital.
The 47-year-old leaves behind a wife and son, aged 15, along with aunts, uncles, cousins and siblings
– many of whom have flown from around the world for his funeral in Christchurch.
It is a second heartbreak for the family in less than six months, after Khan’s father died in November.
‘‘He was brave, hard-working, kind, he challenges many things,’’ said his cousin Mohammed Mubashir Khan, who arrived from Chicago on Monday. ‘‘We have a lot of family over there but he is by himself with his family, his son, and had many plans. I never saw what he has here, but now I know that, that is the word ‘brave’.
‘‘I used to think, ‘how can he do this much by himself’, opening his store, managing staff, but when I saw it, I thought, ‘oh, he actually did it’. I admired him.’’
Known to his friends as Imran Bhai, Khan opened the Makkah Mart halal butchery in December, also on Hills Rd, while his wife runs a cafe in St Albans. Khaja Mohiuddin is the head chef at the Indian Grill, where he has worked for the past six years, after the pair met by chance in Ashburton, where Khan owned a previous restaurant.
A fellow native of Hyderabad, the pair bonded over a shared love of good food and cricket.
Khan worked incredibly hard to establish his businesses, working from 6am until 9pm, six days a week.
While curry drove his work life, cricket was his great love outside of his businesses. ‘‘If there was cricket he would leave anything to watch it,’’ Mohiuddin said. ‘‘He was so mad on cricket.
‘‘If he found a cricket player who plays, he starts talking. If you know cricket well, he was your best friend – he would keep talking to you about cricket.’’
Mohiuddin was with Khan and two other friends at the Linwood mosque when the attack unfolded.
It was during the second rak’ah, part of the prayers, that they heard the sound of what they thought were firecrackers. But bullets came flying through the windows and within seconds Khan lay dead, his two other friends each shot in the shoulder.
Mohiuddin escaped unscathed after taking cover with others in an alcove off the main room, and mercifully the gunman did not reach them.
‘‘He was a good friend to me, I’m going to miss him a lot.’’
And the manner of his death has brought them some small measure of comfort ahead of his expected burial today.
‘‘It brings a sense of calm as much as possible that when he was taken away he was in the best state that he can be,’’ his cousin said. ‘‘He was praying to his God.’’