A decade in Toronto - 13

Che - quiet, shy & handsome

I’ll continue with 2011 because when I look back at the year, I realise that a lot of things happened. And while it’s not possible to capture everything into this series, I do want to ensure that I don’t miss some important occurrences.

My involvement in the Festival of South Asian Literature and the Arts enlarged my circle of acquaintances in the creative world. I realized that the suburbs of Toronto – Mississauga, Brampton, and Oakville had a thriving cultural scene buzzing with events and programs and that South Asians were organizing most of these events.

I was invited to an exhibition of Hindi film posters – Picture House – organized by Ali Adil Khan and Asma Arshad Mahmood at the Art Gallery of Mississauga. It was a painstakingly put together exhibition, where Ali and Asma put a stamp of originality on a subject that could easily have become a sentimental and lachrymose, not to say banal, depiction of a dying art. 

I blogged rather animatedly about it, and my journalism teacher-turned-friend Teenaz Javat read it. She got me invited to the CBC’s Metro Morning show for a brief chat about the exhibition. (Read the blog: Picture House)

At IIFA, photo by Mariellen Ward

In late June, I was invited to participate in the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) awards at the Rogers Centre with Mahrukh, Che and Durga who was with us. The invitation was from my friend CP Thomas, who was doing the public relations for the event organizer Wizcraft (co-owner Sabbas Joseph used to be a colleague).

Thanks to CP, a serial entrepreneur and the publisher of Indian Voices, we got some of the best seats at the awards venue. The show belonged to Shahrukh Khan and Priyanka Chopra, and a bunch of film stars from the yesteryears. (Read the blog: IIFA in Toronto)

Farzana Doctor, the author friend who organizes the immensely influential Brockton Writers’ Series invited me to read at the September 2011 edition of the series along with Jessica Westhead and Pratap Reddy. She was greatly amused by the emails I exchanged to finalise my reading at the series and quoted from it verbatim while introducing me.

With Pratap and Jessica at Brocton Writers' Series

I have tremendous admiration and respect for Farzana. She gave key inputs to improve my manuscript and make it more “Canadian,” when I was struggling with it. Of course, by the time the manuscript emerged as a novel, a lot had already changed. At different stages of my writing process, she was willing to assist, suggest, promote and otherwise help in whatever way she could. Being a star author that she is, she’d forgotten my name by the time her third novel was launched.

Later that month, at the Word on the Street, I participated in the “Adopt a Writer” program with Jessica Westhead at the Word on the Street festival. Books and books-related events had become a major preoccupation. The Munk Centre in midtown Toronto became a regular venue to participate in such events. (Read the blog: Parallel Histories) It was to continue for a few years until recently when I began to consciously slow down my activities in view of my deteriorating kidneys. 

Marshall McLuhan’s centenary was celebrated globally in 2011, and in Toronto, his hometown, he was remembered at a panel discussion organized by the McLuhan Legacy Network. It was an important discussion.

McLuhan remains prescient about the future of the media. He’d predicted the Age of Internet long before it became a reality. He said, “The next medium, whatever it is – it may be the extension of consciousness – will include television as its content, not as its environment, and will transform television into an art form. A computer as a research and communication instrument could enhance retrieval, obsolesce mass library organization, retrieve the individual’s encyclopedic function, and flip into a private line to speedily tailored data of a saleable kind.”

My blog was being noticed and I began to get offers from publishers for book reviews. I’d prefer to write mostly about authors, book events and about books without doing reviews. Calypso Editions in the USA sent me a new translation of Leo Tolstoy’s ‘How much land does a man need’. It’s a simple, straightforward folklore of human greed. I blogged about Tagore and Translation in two parts. (Part 1, Part 2)

Che - getting ready for the
school concert

At work, I was doing all that needed to be done to give back to the ICCC – the organization that had made life possible in Canada for me and my family. I enjoyed the work, and what I loved more was the constant interaction with people who were deeply involved with the organization. 

Under Satish Thakkar's leadership, the organisation took off and successfully scaled peaks of glory never before attempted in the three-and-a-half decades of the organisation's history. 

Harjit Kalsi was another stalwart – an unassuming, soft-spoken, hands-on manager, who made the most menial tasks pleasurable. Together, Harjit and I created a short documentary on Hindi film songs with the railway motif for the ICCC’s year-end gala that had the Indian Railways as its theme.

At home, Che was in his final pre-teen years and was turning into a handsome young man. The next three years would be hard on him; years that’d change him forever.  I’ve often thought about these years and often wondered whether I did the right thing in getting us here.

A decade in Toronto – 6

2009 was our first new year in Toronto and it began with a lot of promise. I started my program in journalism at the Sheridan College in Oakville. I was returning to school after a gap of over 25 years. The journalism class comprised students who were just like me – practising or former journalists from across the world who were trying to get a toehold in the profession in Canada.

It was ironic that after nearly two decades in journalism, both as a working journalist and as a teacher, I was returning to journalism as a student. But I was keen to learn and unlearn. The Sheridan college campus at Oakville was as impressive as any that I’d seen or imagined, and the most interesting part of it all was the daily commute from Toronto to Oakville on the GO train.

With Yoko, Nelson and Mike at Sheridan

The class comprised students from South America, the Caribbean, South Asia, Japan, and Africa - an interesting bunch of highly talented individuals, who were extremely independent-minded and like most journalists were not natural team players. 

Some became great friends during the duration of the course of the program. Yoko Morgenstern and Nelson Alvarado Jourde are friends I dearly miss.  Yoko is in Germany and visits Toronto infrequently, Nelson is back in Peru, and I haven’t met him in years.

With Yoko, Nelson, Mike and Joyce Wayne

The teachers were all equally interesting; Teenaz Javat is now a friend. She is a Bombayite who has had the privilege of working as a journalist in India and Pakistan. I have fond memories of Patricia Bradbury. She made the classroom come alive with her engaging, animated teaching. She also introduced us to Katherine Govier, the renowned and accomplished author, and now an activist for swifter, seamless integration of immigrants into the Canadian mainstream.

Of course, the hero of the program was Joyce Wayne, the program coordinator of the Canadian Journalism for Internationally Trained Journalists. A veteran professor, extremely well-read, a true heart liberal, with a permanent glint of mischief in her eyes, Joyce propelled the program to great heights and constantly challenged its participants to strive to do better.  One of my regrets (and I have many) was not to have done English literature at the university. With Joyce at Sheridan, I finally found a mentor who was as interested in literature as I am.

It was an evening program, so I had to change my shift timing and I returned to the night shift at the condo. After a while the hectic schedule became strenuous, and by April 2009, it was impossible for me to get enough sleep during the day, go to Sheridan in the evening, and then do the night shift at the condo. On a couple of occasions, the patrol who roamed around in a vehicle at night caught me napping.  I decided to quit my job as a security guard.

I was confident that at the end of the Sheridan program, I’d at least get an internship placement somewhere. A major lacuna in the Sheridan program was the absence of a design component. To complete that gap, I joined the Yorkdale Adult Learning Centre’s web designing program; a free program meant for newcomers.  It was an enriching experience. I was now spending several hours at a high school had both eager adult newcomer students and regular school students who were my son’s age.  

Yorkdale group

At Yorkdale, I met a bunch of fun-loving group of Latinos from South America. The classroom had students of all ages and from everywhere – Africa, South Asia, South America, Eastern Europe – all of us sharing a sort of desperation: of getting a proper job. I wrote about my encounter with two religiously devout fellow students.  Click here to read: Question of identity.

Around the same time, I also joined a memoir writing workshop conducted by Allyson Latta at the North York branch of the Toronto public library. After quitting my security guard job, I had the entire day free for myself. Latta’s class was a perfect fit for me; the sessions taught me to look inside myself for stories. Click here to read about Latta’s memoir writing sessions: Allyson Latta.

When Che turned 12, Mahrukh began working at a telemarketing company but was inexplicably laid off, despite doing well. Then, she worked as a data entry operator but the two-people company, operating from a basement on Dufferin and Lawrence disappeared when it was time to pay wages. She was singularly unfortunate in getting steady, sustainable employment; it caused her immense frustration, but she remained cheerful despite the adverse circumstances.

We didn’t let these reversals deter us from exploring our neighbourhoods. On weekends, we’d get into the GO bus or the GO train and go to different towns near Toronto. Even when we were still to know the lay of the land, we did an open-top bus ride in Toronto, within a month of our arrival. On my first birthday in Toronto, we went to the Niagara Falls; it was all that we thought it’d be, and then some.  The most memorable part of our trip: The butterfly garden; we’d never seen anything as exotic and exciting as this garden.  

For me, there can be nothing more exciting than riding the streetcars in the rains. We’ve done the Queen Street streetcar ride more frequently than we’d care to remember – all the way from Long Branch to Neville Park. That year (2009) we went to our first Toronto Auto Show and continued doing so for the next few years. 

When I recall the number of road trips that we did in our early years, the one that stays etched in my mind is the one to Stouffville, ON, to take rides on the model trains.  Click here to read about it: Day trip. Some years later, the federal government used extracts from this blog in its booklet for newcomers.

I was increasingly veering towards writing and started working on freelance assignments for the Canadian Immigrant and the New Canadian magazines. I had also begun work on improving and updating my short story that I’d written in December.  In May 2009, I sent the short story to Diaspora Dialogues, a Toronto not-for-profit that promotes creative expressions in diverse people. This simple act of courage (courage because rejections can be depressing) was to change my life.

Our Lady of Alice Bhatti

Teenaz Javat

Guest Post:
Teenaz Javat

Mohammed Hanif

Set in a desperately poor colony in Karachi, the events that unfold in Our Lady of Alice Bhatti could just as easily have taken place across Pakistan- a country unable to loosen itself from the grip of violence and the vice of corruption.

Mohammed Hanif (who authored A Case of Exploding Mangoes) has painted a dark comedy that explores the underbelly of a city divided over caste, religion and trade.

An airforce pilot turned journalist, Hanif, who is currently the Karachi-based special correspondent of the BBC Urdu Service, spins a powerful narrative around the lives of the choorahs (janitors- bhangis) of French Colony, a Christian slum in the heart of Karachi.

Alice Bhatti, the educated daughter of a choorah cum part-time healer, tries to rise above the caste distinctions that have ensured that she stays at the bottom of the totem pole in a deeply divisive society.

Although founded on the basis of an egalitarian religion, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is anything but. It is steeped in the rigours of a caste system inherited over the centuries as part of undivided India.

A Christian trying to eke out a living in an Islamic society, Bhatti is unable, despite her education, to rise above her choorah-bhangi status. Being a trained nurse in a Catholic hospital means little in a society that refuses to release her of the shackles attached her father’s profession.

Daily existance for Alice and her father Joseph Bhatti is brutal and stark as is described by the fleeting moment of pride Bhatti feels when he brings home a filthy feces-caked peacock rescued from one of the cities sewers.

Alice does all the right things-gets an education, a decent job, she even marries a Muslim to escape the prejudice of the caste system that has relegated her to the bottom of the heap. Not anything short of a miracle will help her escape the viscous circle of poverty.

An absolute must-read if you want to know the real Karachi, where the millions live and love, beyond the manicured gardens and Spanish villas of the privileged neighbourhoods of Defence and Clifton.

Our Lady of Alice Bhatti
Author: Mohammed Hanif
Publisher: Bond Street Books- A division of Random House of Canada Limited
Pages: 239
Price: $22.95
ISBN: 978-0-385-67727-1

The Shoe Project

Last August I went to India for a month – my first trip after I came to Canada.

I had a long list of stuff to buy, and on the top of the list was ‘Buy shoes from Bata’. 

I belong to a generation that grew up before the big four global shoe brands (Nike, Adidas, Reebok and Puma) came to dominate the minds of consumers.

I’ve only wore Bata shoes (or sandals).

In Canada, I could get everything I wanted but no Bata shoes.

In India, where market segmentation is multilayered, Bata is still a powerful brand.

When I was growing up, Bata was such a huge brand that during the socialist phase in India (in the 1970s), there was even a song in a Hindi movie about flour being made available in a Bata shop – flour in Hindi is ata, and rhymes with Bata. 

(Bata ki dukan par bhi ata mile ga a rare Rafi-Kishore duet from the 1978 Heeralal Pannalal).

During our first month in Canada, we took a sightseeing tour of downtown Toronto and saw the Bata Shoe Museum from the outside.

I made a mental note to visit the museum, but visiting museums is one of those things that forever remain on the ‘must do’ lists.

Then, I heard about the Shoe Project from my friend Yoko.

Novelist and short story writer Katherine Govier, who has worked for many years with newcomers to Canada, was spearheading an initiative for the Bata Shoe museum.

The Shoe Project is a collection of memoirs of women immigrants about the shoes they wore (or brought with them) when they came to Canada.

The project started last fall when “Katherine met with twelve women, ages eighteen to sixty, who came to Canada from the Ukraine to Japan and many places in between...(O)ver tea and cookies the group discussed writing and immigration. Each woman found that she had a shoe-inspired tale. By the end each member had written a personal essay and provided the footwear to match.”

The exhibition came about when Katherine met Elizabeth Semmelhack, Senior Curator of the Bata Shoe Museum; Elizabeth “had long considered doing an exhibition featuring the shoes that brought people to Canada.”

Last week, the Shoe Project was officially unveiled.

And I finally visited the Bata Shoe Museum to see the Shoe Project – it is an absolutely fascinating exhibition.

Contributing writers to the Shoe Project 

There are 12 stories by immigrant women from across the world. 

They are by Filiz Dogan from Turkey, Maryam Nabavinijad from Iran, Sayuri Takatsuki from Japan, Gabi Veras from Brazil, Tanaz Bhathena from India, Elizabeth Meneses Del Castillo from Colombia, Miliete Selemon from Eritrea, Teenaz Javat from India & Pakistan, Freweini Berhane from Eritrea, Nada Sesar-Raffay from Croatia, and Tanya Andrenyuk from Ukraine.

Teenaz Javat and Tanaz Bhathena (both Parsis and both originally from Mumbai) read their shoe memoirs.

The exhibition has become possible thanks to a generosity of an anonymous donor.

I also met Sonja Bata, the force behind the museum that was started in Toronto in 1995.

Read more about the Shoe Project here: The Shoe Project

Read more about the Bata Shoe Museum here: Bata Shoe Museum

Read more about Katherine Govier here: Katherine Govier

Image: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151283174910105&set=oa.382013625147425&type=1&theater