A decade in Toronto - 23

2015 was a significant improvement on 2014. My new job at Simmons da Silva introduced me to a number of colleagues, many of them became friends; a couple of them still are, although I’ve moved on from that incredibly dynamic firm.

The leadership of the firm is forward looking and progressive, committed to multicultural ethos, despite a majority of its members being white (or as Stephen Harper would refer as “old stock Canadians”). 

Although being a five-decades-old firm, and law being an endemically conservative profession, thanks to its leadership, Simmons da Silva constantly strives for professional excellence.

Howard Simmons

At the firm, I knew Puneet, who'd created the opportunity for me to work there, and Pathik Baxi, a person who owns the term ‘laid back’. After joining, I instantly became friends with Howard Simmons, the founder of the firm. Howard is a rare free-thinking intellectual in a profession that encourages and often ensures regimentation.

Over the next three-and-a-half years, I got to know nearly 40 individuals who worked at the firm. In any work environment, some colleagues become more important than others. And, as I said at the beginning of this blog, a couple of them remain important, even though I’ve not been able to maintain contact with them as regularly as I’d want to.

When my colleagues surprised me by
celebrating my birthday - the first time in more
than two decades that I celebrated my birthday
in such a manner

However, since there are people in our midst who have the tendency to turn everything pure and magical into prurient and ugly, I shall refrain from naming those who are still important to me only because I have no desire to embarrass them, and because what I shared with them was special and will remain so forever.

May 2015 was the last time the Festival of South Asian Festival of Literature and the Arts (renamed as the Toronto Festival of Literature and the Arts in 2015) was organised by the indefatigable team of MG Vassanji and Nurjehan Aziz.

I was involved directly in organizing the East Asian panel with the help of Diana Tso, a playwright and actor. Sang Kim moderated the discussion on ‘Is Asian-Canadian a helpful label in terms of the Canadian canon’ and included the following eminent Asian-Canadian authors as panelists: Denis Chong, C Fong Hsiung, Madeleine Thien, Diana Tso, and Terry Watada.

The festival filled a vacuum in the cultural landscape of Toronto because it gave representation to authors who were invited from across the developing world, and to Canadian voices that seldom found representation in mainstream cultural programming. 

However, it clearly needed a larger professional organisational strength that the group of volunteers was unable to provide. 2015 turned out to be the last of a great series.

If interested in reading more, click here:  FSALA-15

In the summer of 2015, my friend Kumar Ketkar and his wife Sharada Sathe came to Toronto. It gave me an opportunity to invite a few friends over to my place (the party room of Lexington on the Green) to celebrate a warm evening together. 

All those invited were friends who’d helped me in my journey to become a Canadian, and while not everyone invited was able to come, those who did, contributed substantially to making the evening memorable and loads of fun.

Kumar and Sharada with friends

What I remember most about that evening was the selfless and unselfconscious manner in which Jasmine Sawant took the responsibility of doing the dishes after the party.  

Nitin and Jasmine then invited Kumar and Sharada to meet with their Marathi-speaking group for another dinner reception. It turned out to be a grand success. Both Kumar and Sharada are committed liberal progressives who have spent their entire life for the left ideological causes. 

Here’s a post about Kumar’s visit to Toronto when we went to the Toronto Reference Library: Erasmus of Rotterdam

2015 was also important for another reason – Stephen Harper lost the federal elections. He lost because of an exclusionary political agenda that targeted Muslim immigrants during the last years of his tenure. 

In retrospect, I think, Harper’s sharp exclusionary bend was probably a couple of years before its time.

By 2016-17, the tumultuous events across Europe (in the wake of the Syrian crisis and the ceaseless influx of immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa) and the unexpected victory of Donald Trump’s extremism in the Presidential elections in the United States the forces that Harper tried to unleash in Canada had gained ascendency in the political narrative across most of North America and Europe.

Despite this obvious shortcoming in his politics, I admire Harper for his visionary leadership in improving Canada’s relations with India. He went to India on two occasions during his tenure and expanded the Canadian trade office network across India. And more pertinently, he understood and encouraged the role that Indo-Canadians have and can play in improving bilateral ties.

Also, he was Canada’s prime minister when I arrived in Canada in 2008 and became a citizen in 2014. These are significant landmarks in my life and Harper was an integral part of it. Thanks to my involvement with the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce, I was able to meet him on a couple of occasions.

With Stephen Harper and the ICCC leadership

I voted for the first time in a Canadian election hopeful that my vote would make a difference in making Canada a more just society, a society that treats all its citizens with respect. As they say, the jury is out on that one.

We lost many stalwarts in 2015, among them were: Charles Correa, the eminent architect from Bombay; novelist Gunter Grass; Narayan Desai, Mahatma Gandhi’s executive assistant and an eminent pacifist; Lee Kwan Yew, the creator of modern Singapore.

Vinod Mehta, one of India’s finest editors; and Praful Bidwai, an activist journalist, also passed away. And we lost RK Laxman, the legendary cartoonist of the Times of India, the creator of the Common Man. Laxman shaped the sensibilities of three generations of Indians by his cartoons. I shared the same workspace with him briefly when I worked for the Times Group. Here's the link to a post that narrates my encounter with him:

Uncommon encounter with the creator of common man

In India, Hindu fundamentalists assassinated Govind Pansare, a Communist, and MM Kalbargi, a Kannada academic. A couple of years ago in 2013, they had assassinated Narendra Dabholkar, and a couple of years later, in 2017, they'd assassinate Gauri Lankesh, a journalist who was vociferous in her opposition to the right-wing Hindutva nationalist politics that has come to control India. 

I remain worried for my more outspoken friends in India, and have often told them that in case they perceive any threat to their lives, they should immediately hop on to a plane and reach Toronto. I'd help them in every way possible to get settled here and continue to wage their ideological battle.

I lost a friend – Najia Alavi, a Pakistani-Canadian, and an active member of Communications, Advertising, Marketing Professionals (CAMP), Canada’s first voluntary organization for the marketing fraternity. She died by drowning while on a family vacation in Dubai.

Diana Tso at Stratford

A scene from Diana Tso

Diana Tso is a performer, playwright, poet, storyteller and an artist in education. As the artistic director of the Red Snow Collective (www.redsnowcollective.ca) Diana’s vision of theatre merges the east and the west storytelling art forms through music, movement, and text.

I spoke to her in June to find out about her work at the Stratford Festival, where she has roles in two important plays – the Euripides tragedy The Bacchae, reinterpreted as Bakkhai, by director Jillian Keiley and based on poet Anne Carson’s 2015 version of the Greek classic, and The Komagata Maru Incident based on Sharon Pollock’s play and directed by Keira Loughran, which re-examines the historical event that defined racial relations and tensions in Canada in the early 20th century.  

In Bakkhai, Diana is enacting the role of one of the seven women in the chorus, and in The Komagata Maru Incident, she is Evy, a sex worker, and lover of William Hopkinson, the immigration officer.

Excerpts from the interview:

What is it to be performing at Stratford?

A scene from Bakkhai

I'm living the dream. I've met so many artists and actors. The unique part of performing at Stratford is to have coaches that enrich one’s journey and build stamina to work as an actor. There were coaches to help us vocally, with our text, with our movement. The sessions help actors perform in two or three plays in one season.

How did Stratford happen?

I auditioned for the character of Evy in Komagata Maru, and simultaneously I was also offered the role of one of the seven women in the chorus in Bakkhai. Rehearsals began for Bakkhai in March and the final preview was in June. For Komagata Maru, the rehearsals began in June and the play opened in August and will run through until September.

What is Komagata Maru all about?

This is Canadian history. It’s an exciting role because it explores the situation of a person of colour in the Canadian society in the early 20th century and how she is able to stand up for herself against the stereotypical characterization of both a sex worker and a person of colour.

The character is able to seize her independence and be brave enough to make a positive change in her life; to do something better for herself and for others. Evy’s character has to be seen from the perspective of the early 20th century when women were scarce in Vancouver and almost seen as prized possessions.

The original play was written in the 1970s but this version has been re-contextualised to reflect the South Asian element which the director felt was missing from the original version.

It is particularly poignant at this juncture in Canadian history when we are rediscovering our native heritage and putting it back up on a pedestal where it belongs; when we are acknowledging the native roots of our nation and recognizing its value both in terms of what was snatched from them as well as what we need to do to give it adequate representation in our cultural mainstream. 

It is this process that also finds a reflection in Komagata Maru.

The play is especially relevant in the present context when we are seeing a rise in white supremacist ideology in the United States and also in Canada.

To buy tickets to The Komagata Maru incident, click here: Komagata Maru at Stratford

To buy tickets to Bakkhai, click here: Bakkhai at Stratford
Images take from Stratford Festival website

Comfort - a play by Diana Tso

Diana Tso is a performer, playwright, poet, storyteller & artist in education. She’s a graduate of the University of Toronto in English Literature & of Ecole Internationale de Theatre de Jacques Lecoq in France.  She’s worked with diverse theatres internationally for 18 years. As artistic director of www.redsnowcollective.ca her theatre vision merges east & west storytelling art forms through music, movement & text.  

Upcoming: as a playwright, her the production of her new play, Comfort, premieres 2016; as an actor, she’ll be performing in Chimerica, directed by Chris Abraham at the Royal Manitoba Centre & at Canadian Stage in their 2016/2017 seasons.  Diana is grateful to the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council & Toronto Arts Council for supporting her playwriting, developments & productions.

Diana Tso’s Comfort, a new drama play, honoring the resilience of women in war and inspired by the comfort women of WWII in Asia, will have a free public reading this Thursday August 20th at OISE auditorium of University of Toronto @ 7pm at 252 Bloor St. West (by St. George subway).

It is directed by William Yong with music composed by Constantine Caravassilis.  This event is part of ALPHA Education’s one-week “Remembering Resilience: History + Art = Peace" series, commemorating of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War Two.  

Comfort is the love story of two youths from Nanjing, brought together through their passion for the music of the opera, “Butterfly Lovers”.  Separated by their differences in social classes, they elope to Shanghai to stay together, only to be separated again by the horrors of a comfort house where they survive until the end of the war through the power of love and the transformative power of music.

Comfort is a sequel to Diana’s other drama play, Red Snow, inspired by the survivors of the Rape of Nanking, which was produced in 2012 with critical acclaim in Toronto and continued on its international premiere in China at the ACT Shanghai International Contemporary Theatre Festival in that same year. 

Diana Tso

Diana discovered this part of WWII history while watching a documentary film by Nancy Tong, “In the Name of the Emperor” in 1997.  It awakened her to the lopsided manner in which history is taught in Canada. For someone who was raised in Canada and went to school here, she learnt about World War II; “but it was all European history; the Asian history and stories of the ‘World War’ were excluded.”

As an artist, whose stage is her public platform to speak creatively, it was imperative for her to write Red Snow to give voice to a forgotten holocaust in WWII.  Diana struggled with her research on this subject because there was no history written about it and when she approached people in the community they did not want to dig up and relive the horrors of the past.

However, her research was furthered in that same year when she met Iris Chang who was touring across Canada launching the first North American book about this history, The Rape Nanking, the forgotten holocaust of World War Two.  Reading Chang’s account of the harrowing experiences of Chinese women who were forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese army (the women were euphemistically termed comfort women), further ignited Diana to write Red Snow – that encapsulates the tragedy of what happened in Nanking, as experienced across three generations in a family. 

It is about one Canadian woman’s recurring nightmare, which drives her on a quest to dig through her family’s buried history in China. When she meets a Japanese man, she must confront historical forces that threaten her own personal journey towards love.  The play brings the message of collective healing and global peace.

In 2007 while sitting in the dentist office Diana came across a magazine with an article about ALPHA (Association for Preserving & Learning the History of WWII in Asia).  She contacted the executive director, Flora Chong and gave her a copy of Red Snow.  Ms. Chong was deeply moved by Diana’s play and helped her arrange contacts in Nanjing to interview a couple of survivors in 2008.  Then in the following year Diana participated in ALPHA’s Peace and Reconciliation for educators to tour China and Korean to meet the survivors of WWII and to see the historical sites while learning more about the WWII in Asia.  

This was a life-changing experience that heightened Diana’s writing and continues to do so in her current play, Comfort.

Diana’s further research on the comfort women was furthered by the recent publication of a compilation of 12 survivors’ testimonies, which were enslaved as comfort women.  Chinese Comfort Women – Testimonies from Imperial Japan’s Sex Slaves, edited by Peipei Qui with Su Zhiliang and Chen Lifei, and was published in 2013 by the University of British Columbia press.

The book describes the experiences in the Japanese military “comfort stations” and their continued suffering after the war. These women are: Chen Yabian, Huang Youliang, Lei Guiying, Li Lianchun, Lin Yajin, Lu Xiuzhen, Tan Yuhua, Yin Yulin, Yuan Zhulin, Wan Aihua, Zhou Fenying, and Zhu Qiaomei.  This book will be available for purchase at the public reading of Comfort on August 20, OISE U of T, 252 Bloor St. W auditorium.

Find out more at www.alphaeducation.org

Remembering Resilience part of the "History + Art = Peace" series of events commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII

Other “Comfort” related events in the peace celebrations:

Saturday August 15 @ 7pm

“Remembering Resilience Commemorative Ceremony”

Join us for a candle light vigil and an evening of music, performance art, film, and special guest speakers.  This commemorative ceremony is held to remember the courage and strength of those that suffered during the Asia-Pacific War. Performances include a song from Diana Tso' play, "Comfort” (music composed by Constantine Caravassilis; musicians: Patty Chan -erhu/Chinese violin, Marjolaine Fournier- double bass, Phoebe Hu-Chinese flute) and a performance piece showcasing Comfort's costume designer, Erika Chong’s 2015 collection, inspired by the comfort women.

School of Management, Theatre Hall - TRS1-067  @ 55 Dundas Street West

This event is free and is co-sponsored by Unifor Sam Gindin Chair in Social Justice and Democracy, Ryerson University.  Seats are limited!   Please RSVP here: http://www.eventbrite.ca/e/remembering-resilience-commemorative-ceremony-for-the-70th-anniversary-of-the-end-of-wwii-tickets-16905306226

Friday August 21 @ 1:15pm, 3:15pm & 5:15pm

Birds of a Feather Storytelling Event with Diana Tso, Rubena Sinha & other storytellers.  Join us at the gazebo in Mel Lastman Square 5100 Yonge (at North York Centre subway stop) We welcome the community to share their stories of peace & reconciliation, remembrance & love.

The post below is Lei Guiying’s narrative of her life in the comfort station.

Fsala-15: A report

Even as the economic efficacy of globalization comes under increasing scrutiny, its cultural influence remains strong and potent, especially in the manner in which it has given a commercial dimension to the question of identity and creativity.

This is especially true in the developed world which has failed in preventing the unwashed masses from amassing at its shores. As immigrants, both legal and illegal, struggle perennially in an alien and unwelcoming environment, a hyphenated existence has become both the cause and impetus for creative upsurge.

For three decades and more, politics of identity has dominated the creative discourse, even though it has remained on the margins. The impact of globalization has been the cooption of identity politics into the mainstream, and its successful commercialization.

At the just-concluded Toronto Festival of Literature and the Arts (Fsala-15), the issue of identity, different dimensions of its politics, and its commercialization, dominated the discussions in different forms. Some discussions were heated, some were not, but all were immensely engaging.

The festival hosted over 40 authors from across Canada and from the developing world (Caribbean, Africa, South Asia, and the Philippines) in Toronto. Spread over three days, the festival’s fourth edition had over a dozen literary discussions and four music and dance performances. 

The festival’s highlight was the world premiere of The Book of Sandalwood on 16th May. It was a Bharatanatyam recital by the inDance. The recital included selections from Kalidasa’s Ritusamhara (Sanskrit), Sivakkolundu Desikar’s Sarabhendra Bhupala Kuranvanji (Tamil), and Chtrakavi Shivram Rao’s Tanjavuri Hori Lavani (Marathi). 

The performance was a tribute to Professor Chelva Kanaganayakam, the co-founder of the festival. The inimitable Kasi Rao, who is an authority on Canada-India bilateral relations, and is also a brilliant master of ceremonies, with a strong and stage presence, beautifully encapsulated Chelva's personality by quoting Kalidasa.

Kasi said, "Yesterday is but a dream, tomorrow is only a vision, but today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope.”  Chelva’s life was indeed “well-lived”.  May I acknowledge the presence of Mrs. Thiru Kanaganayakam and the family."

{Read more about the performance here}. 

Prior to this performance, three authors – Tololwa Mollel (Tanzania-Canada), Elizabeth Nunez (Trinidad-Canada-US), and Jose Dalisay (the Philippines) – read from their literary works to an appreciative audience.

The festival commenced on 15th May with an animated discussion between theatre practitioners Diana Tso, Jasmine Sawant, Jawaid Danish, Rahul Varma and Shailja Saxena on the evolution of the ‘New Theatre in Canada,’ with Rahul Varma emphasizing that display of diversity has often been confused for the content of diversity. 

Thereafter, a global panel of authors that included Walter Bgoya (Tanzania), Jose Dalisay (Philippines), Asma Sayed (Canada/Gujarat), Geetanjali Shree (India), and Dannabang Kuwabong (Canada/Ghana), had a lively discussion on ‘Writing for the West,’ and how writing for a western audience molded creativity.

Sheniz Janmohamed, the ebullient and effervescent poet and performer, was the master of ceremonies for the formal inaugural of the festival later that evening where Olivia Chow, former MP and former Councillor, and Toronto’s hope during the last mayoral elections, delivered the keynote address. Olivia spoke about the tough circumstances during her formative years as a new immigrant in Toronto, and how her love for books helped her cope with her adversities. After a brief interlude of African guitar by Tichaona Maradze, three authors – Shauna Singh Baldwin, Madeleine Thien and Kagiso Molope – read from their literary works.

Day 2 began with a discussion on ‘Growing Diversity, Untold Stories,’ The Changing Modes of Writing & Publishing: the impact of self-publishing on the telling of stories. The panelists included Charles Smith, Tasneem Jamal, Sang Kim, Dawn Promislow, and Safiz Fazlul; Narendra Packhede moderated the event. 

Concurrently, Cheran (Tamil), Harish Narang (Hindi), Anar (Tamil), Walter Bgoya (Swahili), and Jose Dalisay (Tagalog) discussed ‘The World, and English: The Challenges of Writing and Publishing in Another Language,’ Is the audience shrinking in the face of growing English influence?. Arun Prabha Mukherjee moderated the discussion. 

Thereafter, Dannabang Kuwabong, Anand Mahadevan, Olive Senior read from their works and Elizabeth Nunez moderated the discussion that followed the reading.

The final panel discussion on Day 2 was a first for the festival when Canadians authors of East Asian origins discussed on the relevance of hyphenated identity. The panel included Denise Chong, Madeleine Thien, Terry Watada, Diana Tso and C Fong Hsiung. The inimitable Sang Kim moderated what turned out to be one of the most nuanced debates of the festival, and provided different (and differing) dimensions to the concept of hyphenated identities.

Day 3 was the day of South Asia, and Meena Chopra set the tone by moderating a discussion on ‘Is their Unity in South Asian Writing?’ Harish Narang, Geetanjali Shree and Anar participated in an energetic debate that explored the politics of identity, race, gender, religious orthodoxy and growing intolerance in South Asian societies. 

Kamini Danadpani, who has performed at the last three festivals, gave a brief but evocative Carnatic vocal recital that included a Tamil poem by Subramania Bharati. 

Suman Ghai chaired the final session on ‘South Asia in Canada.’ Cheran (Tamil), Aparna Halpe (Singhala / English), Gurdev Chauhan (Punjabi), Nasim Syed (Urdu) discussed ‘Can w define a South Asian Canadian identity through literature?’ The session provoked a lively debate on the definition and the relevance of South Asia, the dominance of the idea of India on the South Asian identity, the hegemony of the state, and the status of people in South Asia without a state.

Fsala has emerged as a truly global arts festival with a difference, promoting writers from South Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean, and those not writing in English, who are major figures in their own countries though not always known to the global “mainstream.” 

I will conclude the post by quoting Kasi, who quoted Kalidasa, while bringing the Saturday's dance recital and reading to a close. "We have watered the trees that blossom in the summer-time.  Now let us sprinkle those whose flowering time is past.  That will be the better deed, because we shall not be working for the reward."

For photos of the event, please click here