Strong beginnings, a good education and an eye for business
Karam’s first home was the flat above Michael’s Milk Bar.
It was where Mick lived before he met Rumza in Australia and where they started their family together, with Karam arriving two years later.
And then it all came tumbling down – literally – when a young Karam went crashing down the staircase.
“It shook my father up real bad,” John said.
And so Mick set to getting a single level house built on Turongo St by a Te Awamutu builder.
The plan was drawn up by Mick on the back of a paper bag, John said, and it was built in 1945.
He made history with that house – it was the first brick home built in Ōtorohanga.
Karam started his education at Ōtorohanga District School at five years old. At that time, the school combined both primary and secondary schools.
It was about 1955 that Karam went to boarding school at Wesley College, near Auckland, to receive a good education.
“My mother and father were very hard working – day and night, seven days a week in the milk bar,” John said.
“They did not want him to not be educated properly and they weren’t able to help him with his work.”
Owing to their age gap of seven years, John couldn’t share many anecdotes about his brother’s childhood.
“My childhood was different to Karam’s,” he said.
“For example, my brother could tell you nothing about the flood. He had absolutely no experience of the flood, because it was in February ‘58. In February, school goes back.
“He was gone. By the time he came back, it was all cleaned up.
“We went through the biggest devastation of our lives, and he missed the whole thing.”
Because the flood ripped through their home on the flat, John joined Karam at Wesley College for a term in 1958. He was just 11 years old and by his estimation, too young to be at boarding school.
At that time, Karam was a prefect.
During the school holidays Karam would return home to Ōtorohanga and help his Uncle, Joe Isaac, (his father’s brother) in his menswear business.
Karam took two attempts to earn university entrance, but John said that wasn’t any measure of his intelligence.
“He gained university entrance on his second attempt, not because he was too dumb, but because he used to become very nervous at exam time and could not remember all that he had studied in preparation.”
At the age of 23, Karam went to work in his Uncle Waddy Malouf’s shirt and pyjama factory in Australia, (his mother’s brother) .
John said Uncle Waddy and Aunty Maria Malouf were like second parents for Karam and they treated him like a son.
“Our uncle regularly kept in touch with us and always said Karam was the best warehouseman he ever had.”
He enjoyed it so much that he got adoption papers drafted up and sent back home, which did not amuse his mother.
“This, of course, was a prank but it shook us up enough for our mother to sternly tell her brother to send him home.”
John said Karam loved watching rugby. That came from his days at Wesley College – it was the school Jonah Lomu attended after all.
“They were rugby people there.”
But Karam himself was a keen table tennis player and the sport had a big following in Ōtorohanga at the time.
“He was very good at it. He could put the spin on the ball and send it anywhere he wanted to,” John said.
Of course, with their father owning Ōtorohanga Billiard Saloon, both John and Karam also took an interest in pool and snooker.
“That was one of his sports that he liked and really enjoyed – just like our father. Me too, but I wasn’t as passionate about it as my father and Karam were.
“They were passionate about the game. They used to get very, very excited when they were playing the game – especially if they played against each other.
“Oh, there was a lot of noise going on.”
