Memory is a treasure. 

Ask Kishori Lal Sahni.

Ask him about what he remembers of 1953, when he joined the Kenya Police at only eighteen, wet behind the ears. When cops wore stiff khaki shorts, and socks up to their knees. He remembers chasing brigands, pistol in hand and working with the legendary Patrick Shaw. Which is like saying, “I worked with Mansa Musa.”

He remembers becoming Officer Commanding Central Police Station. He remembers patrolling leafy Riverside Drive in a police Land Rover when Africans and Asians weren’t allowed to own homes there. “One day,” he told himself, “I will own a house here.”

He remembers leaving the police and starting Securex in 1970, then an investigations business with just four staff. And his son, Tony, calling from London one day. “Dad, can I come back? Let’s grow the business.” He doesn’t remember how four people became five thousand guards.

However, he remembers the people he has lost. All his closest friends. “I’m the only one left.” He swats away the question of regret like you’d swat away a pesky fly. There is more to celebrate. He has great-grandchildren. He still comes to the office. He reads without spectacles. He still enjoys two whiskies.

Ask him what the twenty-five-year-old who planted this company would think if he walked into Securex today. “Is this Securex?” It’s more of a statement. It’s framed as a question, but it lives as a statement.

He owns two homes on Riverside Drive now. The road where, as a young policeman, he dreamed of owning a home. The road where Securex stands today, 9 Riverside, is also the same road where his first family home once stood.

Memory, it turns out, has a curious filing system.

It forgets how the tree grew.

It never forgets where it was planted.