The Buddha House On Saddle Peak
Evacuation warnings are part of the price we pay for living in Topanga. Azmina Kanji had ignored all previous ones, but there was something about the unusually strong Santa Ana winds this time that gave her pause.
It was Azmina’s job to call her neighbors in Zone 8 on Saddle Peak that it was time to leave. They said they wouldn’t go until Azmina did. Victoria Charles, who lives opposite but was stuck in traffic at the time, called frantically to ask Azmina to wait with her daughter, Valentina, who was home from college and had no car, until Victoria got there.
Azmina waited for Victoria to get there so her daughter wasn’t alone. A convoy of five cars followed Azmina down Stunt Road to Mulholland. It was windy, but they couldn’t see any flames or smell smoke.
Azmina had grabbed her two dogs and their blankets. “There wasn’t room in my little Prius for much else and I was in a rush,” said Azmina. “A fallen tree had blocked the road. A firefighter with a plow moved it so we could get past.”
Azmina had been in constant phone contact with her 30-year-old son, Sasha, who lives in downtown Los Angeles but had grown up in the home affectionately known as the Buddha House on Saddle Peak. Sasha said, “A fire in the Palisades didn’t seem likely to impact us. I was just getting off work and received the alert that businesses had been burned at the bottom of Topanga. I told Mom she had to leave. I heard people who hadn’t heeded the evacuation warnings on Big Rock were turning up at Duke’s with burns. It was getting scary.”
Twelve hours later, Sasha learned that the fire had reached Bravo 69 fire station. “That’s right next to our house, so you’d think that was the best place to be. Unfortunately, not the case.”
They had both headed to the Simi Valley house of Azmina’s sister, Nazlin. That was where they received the worst news.
“Our neighbor, Joel, called us,” said Sasha. “He has a friend in Arson Watch who had checked our neighborhood.” Joel said, ‘Azmina, I don’t know how to tell you this, but your house is gone.’
“My mom was crying. I was crying,” said Sasha. “We didn’t really know what it meant. Someone sent us a video of the street. The trees in front of our house survived. This happened on the Wednesday morning—within the first day of the fire starting. We saw the trees on the video and thought, ‘OK, bad information, the house is fine.’ Then we saw the door frame. That’s all that was left.”
Azmina and Sasha have lived in Topanga since 1984. First on Fernwood for three years in a rental, then the Buddha House since January 1987.
“Home meant everything to me,” said Azmina. “I’ve been working hard to keep the house going. As a single mom since Sasha was 10, it wasn’t easy.”
Azmina was ready to retire. A well-paid job as an air traffic controller enabled her to get a mortgage on the Buddha House. Then she started a thriving business as a fashion designer, combining contemporary fashion with traditional Indian procedures like embroidery, beading and hand painting.
“For years, my mother would have her amazing designs on sale at our house,” said Sasha. “We built that into a business that was in 180 stores. We had music, amazing food and the chai tea my mom is famous for. People came to the house and it didn’t matter to us if they bought clothes or not. My mom has really left her mark on the Topanga community. Her clothes are labelled Azmina. We gave up our storage unit as it was so expensive to rent and we had the clothes in a trailer next to the house. Hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of merchandise. All lost.”
Azmina has been a pillar of the Topanga community for forty years. Her parties are legendary, her cooking sublime. A third-generation Indian from Uganda whose family fled the tyranny of dictator Idi Amin, Azmina’s food is a taste sensation combining flavors and textures from around the world. A Nichiren Buddhist, Azmina hosted weekly hour-long chanting sessions for world peace at her home. Azmina would cook for her fellow chanters. “I love entertaining. I love people. I’m very social.”
Has Azmina’s faith helped her with this devastating loss? “It has helped me keep my anxiety and my anger at bay,” she said.
There is anger. Azmina said. “I blame the budget cuts. We heard from several people that two homes were burning, ours and the house next door but there were no fire trucks. No firefighters. I have a neighbor on Sadie Road who stayed to fight the fire. He called the fire department three times to say the Buddha House on Saddle Peak is burning and they said they’d send somebody, but no one arrived. They didn’t have any firemen on standby. I heard there were over a hundred fire trucks in LA that needed repairing because they didn’t have enough mechanics to fix them. A massive reservoir in the Palisades was empty. It’s a failure everywhere you look.”
Sasha agrees the failures are hard to ignore. “They ran out of water and they ran out of personnel. I think there’s a lot of mutual blame to go around, but I also think that, unfortunately, no matter where the blame lies, unless there’s a big class action or something like that, we still have a tall task in front of us to rebuild. We know we have a hazardous environment to deal with at our home. We are meeting with a builder, and a modular home company that produces fire-resistant homes and specializes in fire rebuilds. They did a lot after the Woolsey fire. We have to get our asses in gear on all these different fronts without having the chance to grieve.”
Sasha has been busy from day one dealing with FEMA and their insurance company, not easy at the best of times. Harder still, as the Kanjis have learned they are what’s known as “under-insured.”
“It’s all-consuming. It’s a full-time job,” said Sasha. “I’m playing ten different games at once. There’s the game you play with the insurance company. We’ve got a public adjuster. The game you play with builders, along with 12,000 other people who have lost homes that need rebuilding. We consider ourselves stewards of the community and the mountains.”
A friend of Sasha’s who calls Azmina his second mom and their home a safe place has started a Go Fund Me page for them. “People have been so kind to us. I’ve been taken aback by how much love and support we’ve been given,” said Azmina. “Everybody wants to fight for us to be able to stay in the canyon.”
A friend has lent Azmina and Sasha an apartment in Topanga to get by initially. The Go Fund Me donations will help them buy a trailer to put on the land while they rebuild their home. There are everyday expenses to be met before any insurance money comes through, which could take a while.
Sasha said, “I don’t want my mum to be living like a refugee. She’s done that before when her family fled Uganda. Now we have a different challenge. This new house will show our resilience as people and it will be my mom’s crowning achievement. It’s my turn now. I’m gonna make sure my mom is OK and can stay in this community. When the house is rebuilt, we are going to have the greatest party ever.”
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-sasha-and-azmina-rebuild-after-palisades-fire
