A decade in Toronto - 15

Truly, the better half

Debra Black interviewing me for the Toronto Star was one of the highlights of 2012. Joyce Wayne, who had temporarily moved to a condominium on Queen Street W, introduced me to Debra, the immigration reporter of the Star. Debra and Joyce were neighbours. And all of us were a part of the group that Joyce had started – published, soon-to-be-published and aspiring authors – at Depanneur, a restaurant that specialised in artisan cuisine, in Little Portugal on Dundas Street West.

The original group comprised Joyce, David Panhale, Dawn Promislow, Jasmine D’Costa, David Cozac, and Leslie Shimotakahara. The group moved away from Depanneur into different restaurants along Dundas West when it began to grow, when Sang Kim, Ava Homa and Debra Black joined.  Unfortunately, with all such impromptu writers’ group, it disbanded without a murmur.

Debra interviewed me because I guess she found my experiences as a newcomer to Canada fascinating. The story created some waves – giving me my Warhol-adjudged 15 minutes of fame. I reread the interview while writing this blog, and I think Debra has done a great job getting me to talk in details about things that I'd not have talked about if she hadn't asked; things that a decade later seem sort of significant. 

If you’re interested in reading it, click here: Star write-up.

My association with the MG Vassanji's and Nurjehan Aziz's Festival of South Asian Literature and the Arts had widened my circle considerably. By now, I had a growing circle of writer friends and from other creative spheres such as theatre, the arts. These included Jasmine and Nitin Sawant, the husband-wife team that runs the SAWITRI theatre, producing some of the best South Asian theatre in Canada.

I’d met them the previous year at Rang Manch Canada’s multilingual theatre festival, and since then our camaraderie had grown. One of the most memorable performances that I’ve attended which SAWITRI produced in 2012 was Saree Kahaniyaan.  

Meena Chopra, the artist and poet, organised the launch of MG Vassanji’s The Assassin’s Song’s Hindi translation called Qatil Ke Geet under the auspice of the Hindi Writers’ Guild. The highlight of this well-attended program was the literary critique of the novel by Shailja Saxena and Sharan Ghai, the stalwarts of the Hindi Writers' Guild.

Munir Parvaiz, who was one of the committee members of the Festival of South Asian Literature and the Arts, gave me a Hindi translation of  Noor Zaheer's Urdu memoir about her father Sajjad Zaheer, an active member of the Communist movement in India, and one of the founders of Progressive Writers' Movement in India. Munshi Premchand presided over the first convention of the progressive writers in 1936.

Munir's Writers’ Forum organised a phone chat with Noor Zaheer, based in India. It was a fascinating conversation. Listening to Noor Zaheer speak about her father touched my heart – his simple message to his daughter was that there is no hardship or sacrifices in doing something you believe in. Sacrifice is only when you do something you have to, but don’t believe in.

VI Lakshmanan (better known as Lucky Lakshmanan) sent me through S. Kalyan Sundaram, a copy of the Prosperity and Peace for the Twenty-First Century by APJ Abdul Kalam. It is a compilation of the former President of India’s speeches.

I mention this here for two reasons – the first is I now work at the Canada India Foundation (CIF) and of course, the main reason is Kalam. He epitomizes the best of what India stands for and what it offered – a scholastic mixture of the science and culture, heritage and progress, inclusive ethos and forward thinking.

Kalam – the soft-spoken and the unassuming scientist – has given India and Indians a vision for the future – something that the country and its people could aspire to achieve if Indians put their mind to it. Read a passage from the book here: Tolerance.

Humber lecture

Two friends – Murali Murthy and George Abraham launched new ventures. Murali turned into a motivational coach and published several books. Murali supported me immensely during my initial years of struggle with the right sort of motivation.

George, who I’d known since our time together in Bombay as journalists, launched the New Canadian Media, an online news outlet that focused on the news of by for newcomers. It is one of the most significant contributions to Canadian media in recent times. Unfortunately, it's in dire need of funds and George is busy finding ways to keep it afloat.

Humber College invited me to address newcomers and give them career guidance. This was completely surprising. I was being considered an immigrant success story. 

In 2012, I also went to the reading series of the Shoe Project, a collection of memoirs of women immigrants about the shoes they wore (or brought with them) when they came to Canada. Katherine Govier, the novelist and activist, started working on the project in 2011 and produced the first reading series in 2012 at the Bata Shoe Museum. Two friends - Teenaz and Tanaz - were part of the project.

Those who have known me know that I’ve always admired MJ Akbar. I became a journalist reading non-stop Akbar’s Sunday magazine, his reportage, his coverage of the Hindi heartland of India, his books. In more ways than one would care to admit, he shaped journalism in India since the 1970s.

Anurag Chaturvedi, who’d worked with Akbar, had observed when Akbar launched the Asian Age that Aroon Puri (publisher of India Today) and Vineet Jain (publisher of Times of India) had proved that a publication doesn’t need an editor, and Akbar had proved that an editor didn’t need a publisher.

Akbar remained a must-read for me for over three-and-a-half decades, and this was despite the disquiet over his increasingly pro-BJP stance for many years. But my adulation ended abruptly and turned into an embarrassment when he formally joined the BJP as a spokesperson and then as a junior minister.

But before his saffronization, he visited Toronto to launch his book Tinder Box – The Past and Future of Pakistan. He delivered a talk at the Rotman School’s India Innovation Institute. He still came across as an unbiased historian (albeit who narrated history from an Indian perspective). 

I was to meet him again at the Munk Centre and got an opportunity to talk to him after his - expectedly - erudite lecture. I asked him to explain his pro-Modi stance.  He quoted the Qu'ran, and said the holy book of the Muslims identified three types of people - the believers, the non-believers and the hypocrites - the munafiqun, the group that is decried in Qu'ran as outward Muslim but who are secretly unsympathetic to the cause of Muslims and actively seek to undermine the Muslims community. Although he didn't explicate, it was clear to him where I belonged. And I was equally clear that given his newfound affection for the BJP, it was perhaps more applicable to him. 

That year, I also participated in a book discussion and launch of Rajiv Malhotra’s Being Different. Rajiv Malhotra is a controversial figure, standing resolutely to the right of the debate on India and all things Indian. His critics have accused him of plagiarism, and his supporters have hailed him as a saviour. I had the opportunity of talking to him briefly at the book launch held at the North York Centre’s city facility. He is a soft-spoken person who is convinced about his scholarship. But I found his book jargonic and unnecessary pedantic. 

With Che at the Malton bus terminal

2012 was also the centenary of Charles Dickens. There is no novelist greater than Dickens. The best novel ever is unquestionably Great Expectations.

And one of the most memorable events in our lives occurred in 2012. 


There are many reasons I'll remember Harpreet Sethi, but the number one reason why I will never forget him is that he invited Mahrukh to a program.

While inviting me to the launch of a fashion show that his entertainment company was organizing, and he insisted that my wife should accompany me. This was for the first time that anyone had invited Mahrukh. Ali took a photo of us together - it's one of the best of the two of us together. 

In September, while celebrating Che's birthday, we went did what we normally do - go on long bus rides. While waiting at the Malton bus terminal, Mahrukh took a photo of me and my son, which is one of my all time favourites. My son looks cool.

Katherine Govier

Among the many people who have helped me make Canada my home is Katherine Govier,

renowned author and immigration activist. I first met her when I was a student at Sheridan College’s now defunct program in Canadian journalism for internationally qualified writers. Patricia Bradbury invited her to interact with students.

And with that uncanny knack that I have of turning near-perfect strangers into near-perfect enemies, we got off on a wrong start. But it was Katherine’s magnanimity that she overlooked my transgressions, and continued to extend a cordial but firm support.  

Her exquisite collection of short stories The Immaculate Conception Photography Gallery introduced me to her writing, and I was to discover that she began her career as a writer in 1979. Earlier this month, Katherine published her eleventh novel The Three Sisters Bar and Hotel.

In 2009 she started sending periodic Postcards to a select group of “correspondents”, and I was privileged to be amongst the recipients. Always personal, often idiosyncratic, these Postcards give a rare insight into the life of a prominent Canadian author.

Writing recently in her Postcards series, Katherine reminisced:

My first book, Random Descent, made its debut in February, 1979. The novel was hardcover, and priced at $12.99. I did a reading at 21 McGill Street with Robertson Davies, who taught me how to autograph:  you sat at a desk and your wife stood off to the left, ushering people into an orderly line and ensuring that each of them had one – and only one – freshly purchased book for signing.  You took a good quality fountain pen, opened the proffered book to the half title page, carefully crossed out your own name where it is printed under the title and with “by” above it, and wrote your signature in a beautiful, cursive script, before the awestruck crowd.

Ah yes, well much has changed.

In addition to be a renowned author, Katherine is an ardent advocate for newcomer integration into the Canadian mainstream, and has been working tirelessly for this cause.

About four years ago she launched the Shoe Project to create a platform for immigrant women to share their stories. 

Writing recently as a guest blogger on Gail Anderson-Dargatz’s blog, she explained her involvement with this path-breaking activism:

People ask me why I have taken on this work—why when I’m busy, why when I could be doing my own writing, why when I could be holidaying in Mexico, why when adult immigrants to Canada whose first language is, say, Tamil, are so difficult to coach as writers in English.

Here’s the reason: I love it. Meeting women aged 18, 30 or 65 from China, Croatia and Syria and Afghanistan and South Sudan and Brazil and Russia is huge fun. It’s travel without the security lineups; instead of at Pearson Airport I’m lining up for the butcher at 5 am in Poland in the 1980’s in minus twenty degree Fahrenheit weather—and I’ve got Relaks boots on my feet. (Look it up!)…

The Shoe Project is literacy. The novel is literary. These are considered in our country to be two entirely different things.

I’d like to introduce a new thought: this distinction is a form of discrimination. It is like racism. The writing of a person who does not use the correct adverb or misses the past tense of a verb or chooses a generality because she doesn’t have the broad vocabulary of a native English speaker is deemed not publishable, not artistic, not worthy of support of the literary establishment, the granting agencies, not worthy of the time spent to fix it by newspapers or radio. It is pushed downwind into “literacy”— which means “there are ESL issues”; it doesn’t count, and can’t be published. But with advice from peers around a workshop table, coaching, editing, and copyediting- which, frankly, native English speakers need too- That same story becomes vital, informative and urgently to the point. Great stories get lost between languages.

We’re all in this together. And here’s another thought: new writers bring new readers.”

The Three Sisters is a “story of an unlikely marriage, a century of a life in a mountain park, and a collection of runaway aristocrats, wildlife artists and cowboys who made history — but did not make it into the history books.”

The launch event at Ben McNally bookshop in downtown Toronto was a grand success. 

Recently, I interviewed Katherine and two Shoe Project participants on my show Living Multiculturalism. Here's the video of the interview:

Images: 

http://www.gailanderson-dargatz.ca/cms/index.php/blogs/guest-blogs/35-guest-blogs/264-katherine-govier

http://www.harpercollins.ca/9781443436649/the-three-sisters-bar-and-hotel

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