Kakahi resembles a sleepy backwater these days, but its general store owner, Manu Lala, recalls a town which once boasted three huge sawmills, two movie theatres and a population of maybe 3000 people.
To say the 81-year-old has remained loyal to the famous fly-fishing locality, about 20km southeast of Taumarunui, is an understatement.
The Lala family has run the Kakahi Store and Post Office for some 86 years, with Manu in change since about 1956. Having fed his community all that time, the gentle natured shopkeeper is considered part of every family living in Kakahi.
When he featured on TV One’s “Good Sorts” in 2020, those interviewed by presenter Haydn Jones credited him with, “holding our whole community together”.
After emigrating from India, Manu’s dad was attracted to the then thriving King Country timber town and purchased the local shop in 1937. Manu and his mum were sent for and arrived in Auckland following an epic voyage from India to Sydney and a flight across the Tasman by flying boat.
Their plane landed on the Hauraki Gulf and mother and son were met by Manu’s dad after being rowed ashore.
They took the train from Auckland to Kakahi, where the railway station was then fully staffed, with passenger trains arriving and departing night and day.
“It was a real adventure, but a bit scary, too,” Manu said. “You see mother and I didn’t speak a word of English.”
But right from the start, the community took eight-year-old Manu under its wing.
“My teacher at the primary school told me, ‘Manu you have to be adopted by this family’ and I tell you what, they became like my brothers and sisters. I just about lived at the Speirs family’s place in those days, their grandmother would take us for swims down at the Whakapapa River, and that’s how I learned to speak English.”
One of the family, Beth Lawson, has remained a close friend over the years and still comes out from Taumarunui with husband Bruce to see him.
Manu describes a happy childhood, helping his dad at the store before and after school. And with the store right next door to one of the town’s movie theatres, he recalls he and his dad hurrying from their theatre seats on Wednesday and Saturday “movie nights” to open the shop to sell moviegoers their ice creams and drinks at half time.
“My dad taught me to love trout fishing and as a boy I just lived on the water. Our fishing spots on the Whakapapa and the Whanganui Rivers are some of the best in the country, maybe in the world, for fly fishing.”
As a boy, Manu also loved playing hockey, cricket and table tennis, with teams from Kakahi always in fierce competitions with those from nearby Piriaka, Ōwhango and Taumarunui.
He attended Taumarunui High School and set his sights on a career as an accountant, but it was not to be. When he was in the fifth form, his dad developed MS and, aged just 15, Manu had to step up to take over the business. But he says he has no regrets about remaining in Kakahi, where he eventually married his wife, Kamu, with whom he raised three children.
His passion for trout fishing led to a close friendship with one of the country’s leading landscape artists of last century, Peter McIntyre. The artist, an avid fly fisherman, fell in love with Kakahi, building a house and studio there. During the 60s and 70s, Manu and Peter were inseparable, often going hunting or fishing together.
Manu said his original shop was a pretty rustic affair with guns and ammunition on display in the window. “I wouldn’t sell that stuff now – too many regulations.”
In 1975 he pulled down the old store building and built the present one.
Today, he works there more or less as he has done all his life, adding up everything using pen and paper rather than using a calculator.
Over the years he has been a bastion of the local community, serving on the local school committee for 25 years, right up till it was closed, mowing lawns and helping to maintain amenities like the playground.
“I was really brassed off when they closed the school because they did it without consulting the community. I love Kakahi, people here really work together and care for one another and if I was 40 years younger, I wouldn’t think of leaving,” Manu said.
He quips that his “big mistake” was sending his children to university where they got big degrees and eventually found big city jobs. Now they like coming home for holidays but have no desire to take over the business.
“It’s been a great lifestyle business but now it’s time to sell. I’d like to do a bit of travelling while I am fit enough to do so, because I have never been south of Wellington or north of Auckland.”
Manu said at last Kakahi seemed to be moving ahead with more tourists, more people coming into the area and several new houses being built.
“I think it would be a great place for a café, and my big five-bedroom house would make an ideal bed and breakfast. What I really need is to find somebody to buy it all and take it to the next level.”
Meanwhile, Manu said what gives him the greatest pleasure these days is talking to his sole grandchild on Facebook every night. Fifteen-month-old toddler Niva is his pride and joy, and he always speaks to her in his native Gujarati.
“Though we used English at work my dad always spoke to me in Gujarati at home. Dad believed that even if you changed countries, it was essential to maintain one’s culture and language, and I agree with that.”
