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 - 12

Che at his school concert

2011 turned out to be a momentous year in many ways. Some of India’s biggest and most enduring cultural icons left us – Dev Anand, Shammi Kapoor, Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, and Maqbul Fida Husain. Each had carved a special niche amongst Indians with their achievements.

Husain’s death was tragic. The artist who had shaped aesthetic sensibilities in post-independence (and post-colonial)  India had to live his last few years in exile, fearful that if he continued to live in India, he would be apprehended and imprisoned for hurting the Hindu religious sentiments because he had preferred to paint Hindu goddesses (and Mother India) in the nude. One should bear in mind that all this happened before Narendra Modi changed India irreversibly and forever in 2014.

Bharat Mata by MF Husain

On May 1 2011, American soldiers killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The man redefined our world and his ideology of terrorism divided (divides) people as nobody else has since perhaps Leninism did in the early 20th century. The manuscript that I was working on was primarily based on the ideology of hatred preached by Laden and his foot soldiers in the Islamic world.

The year began with the Islamic world suddenly seized by an urgent need for a revolution. Led by social media, the youth of Egypt took to streets and demanded democracy; young people from across the Middle East joined in. Briefly, with the ouster of Mubarak in Egypt and the brutal street lynching of Gaddafi, it seemed that after all these years of being under brutal dictatorships the region would see the birth of democracy.

It appeared that perhaps George Bush Jr had been right all along – that invading Iraq had been about ushering democracy in the Middle East. Of course, that was not to be, and aided and abetted by the United States of America (then under Obama administration, with Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State) throttled democracy and reinstated a military dictatorship in Egypt, leaving most of the Middle East smouldering.

Also in 2011, the world’s population crossed 7 billion, and the seven billionth baby was born in India, and India won the World Cup, fulfilling Sachin Tendulkar’s dream.

However, this is not the place for a detailed discussion on global sociopolitical and cultural issues. This blog is about Mahrukh, Che, Canada, and me. For all of us, the year was turning out to be immensely important. Che graduated from the middle school and decided to go to the York Memorial Collegiate for high school. He had become an independent-minded young adult who took his own decisions.

Che's graduation from Middle School

In school, he learnt to play the clarinet and was included in the school’s concert choir. It was probably a routine matter, but for us – immigrant parents – it was an amazing achievement and we took pains in ensuring that he was dressed appropriately. Che’s transformation had been the quickest because he went to school and there is nothing better than grassroots education to ensure comprehensive integration.

Read about Che at school here: Losing accent

Mahrukh, who had completed her program in social work from Medix, was courageously working as a volunteer with different settlement agencies across Toronto. She was gaining tremendous experience and was acquiring firsthand knowledge about the intricacies of the settlement process. However, she remained singularly unlucky because while everyone admired her abilities and skills, nobody was willing to offer her a regular job.

I’d continued to work on my manuscript and an extract of my unpublished manuscript was published as a short story in the Indian Voices Vol I published in India by CP Thomas and edited by the formidable Jasmine DaCosta, who had already included another extract from the manuscript in the Canadian Voices Vol II. I was one of the readers at the launch of the collection at Toronto’s Supermarket Bar. I was delighted that MG Vassanji and Nurjehan Aziz were among the audience. The hugely talented Farzana Doctor was the other reader.  This was my moment under the spotlight (literally) and I enjoyed it every bit.

At the launch of Indian Voices Vol I

Jasmine DaCosta introduced us to Mariellen Ward, a travel writer of repute, who did an interview with the group (Jasmine, Farzana and Niranjana Iyer) about new Indo-Canadian writing in Toronto and got it published in the Maple Tree Literary Supplement edited by the versatile Amatoritsero Ede. Read about it here:  Defining Indo-Canadian writing

My association with MG Vassanji had continued even after I completed my program in Creative Writing under his guidance at Humber College and he included me in the core group of the organisers of the Festival of South Asian Literature and the Arts (FSALA). Along with the other committee members, I was to organize the second edition of the festival. I’d participated in the first edition in 2009 and had gone to the Robert Gill Theatre Koffler Centre at the U of T (St. George) at the reading of Bapsi Sidhwa (Ice Candy Man / Earth); Anosh Irani and Tahira Naqvi also read at the event.

Read here about FSALA 2009

For 2011, the program was perhaps a bit more ambitious with over 30 authors participating, including the iconic Girish Karnad, the Jnanpeeth award-winning playwright of groundbreaking plays such as Tughlak and Naga-Mandala. The festival also acknowledged Rabindranath Tagore’s 150th birth anniversary and Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s centenary. Ananya Mukherjee of York University performed an amazing skit in Bengali based on Tagore’s writings. For an academic, it was truly a jaw-dropping performance. I told her she’d have succeeded as an actor, too, had she tried.  

Read about the festival here:

FSALA 1

FSALA 2

The festival was remarkable in many ways. I had the privilege on meeting two of the best playwrights in India – Girish Karnad and Mahesh Dattani. Dalbir Singh, at that time a student, interviewed both of them at a scintillating session. With Karnad, I managed to have an exclusive chat as I walked with him back to the hotel. He was more concerned that I’d be cold because I wasn’t wearing any warm clothes.  

A decade in Toronto - 11

Che and Mahrukh returning from Pune to Bombay

By the time 2011 began, both Mahrukh and I were missing Bombay rather desperately. It’d been three years in Canada, three years away from what we still considered ‘home’, three years that had been unexpectedly harsh, hard and unrelenting. We were happy that we survived, but also tired. We needed a mental rejuvenation. And what better way to get that than to go home on a vacation? In August 2011, we took Swissair and reached Bombay.

Our city had changed, transformed into a giant construction site. The number of skyscrapers under construction was evidently spiralling out of control; the Mumbai Metro had started from Ghatkopar to Versova, but the project would become altogether more ambitious in the next few years. The Bandra Sea Link had been completed and looked every bit the architectural marvel that it was envisaged to be.

We were ecstatic to be back, but not for long. Something had changed inside us. Bombay no longer felt like home. It’d changed, and so had we. Yes, the monsoon was at its peak, but - unexpectedly - the humidity was unbearable. And we were ashamed to admit that because we'd lived in that humidity for all but three years of our lives. 

After a few days of being cloistered at home, working on my manuscript, I ventured out and met some friends. They were all universally welcoming, affectionate and delighted to see me. However, their lives had inexorably moved forward, as had mine (although their lives seemed to have moved faster and far ahead as compared to mine). 

What remained was just a shared past. I wasn’t a part of their present and that changed the relationship into something that was somehow lesser than what it’d been; somewhat incomplete, static; somewhere directionless, uprooted.

Suddenly, my city was no longer my own, my people had become distant. It was then that the irony of my existence became obvious. I guess it's the fate of all immigrants – neither belonging to the city that had become one’s home, nor to the city that had been one’s home. I would never become a Torontonian, and I was no longer a Bombayite.

I was in an in-between world, belonging nowhere, condemned to be an outsider even in my own life. The relationships that one makes when one is young probably last longer because these relationships are not need-based; they are what one wants. As one grows older, and especially in the case of an immigrant like me, who emigrated at an old age, it’s almost impossible to form genuine relationships that one wants; and the only relationships that seem possible are those that are need-based.  

My relationships from the past had turned to fossil and my relationships of the present were transactional, based on mutual needs. No doubt, there have been (and hopefully there will be) exceptions, but perhaps they only prove the rule; or am I being too cynical and morose?

Mahrukh shared this feeling of being uprooted perhaps more acutely because she had (and still has) her family in India. If there is one thing that she has in great abundance it is resilience.  Immigration changes everyone, and everyone manages these changes differently. In Mahrukh’s case, the changes were too drastic and it took a tremendous effort for her to emerge from the trauma of displacement.

Being an outgoing and amiable person, she was able to make friends easily, bond with people not too different from us. However, she worked on transforming herself. The result was not manifest when we went to India in 2011, but within a few months, when 2012 began, Mahrukh joined Home Depot, which changed her so completely that she is no longer the woman she was when she left India.

We returned to Toronto after a month’s stay in Bombay. Somehow it’d felt strange to go home on a vacation, but when we returned, it didn’t feel strange to return to what wasn’t yet home.

A decade in Toronto – 10

Che in Kingston (2010)

I return to my memoirs after a long gap of over a month. The last couple of months have been hectic and difficult. I’ve changed my job and will be working at the Canada India Foundation from Monday, May 28. A former friend and colleague in Bombay had described my penchant for continuous transition rather aptly. He called me dust. “He takes time to settle down.”

In any case, the pressure of a job change and the freelance assignment led to a severe curtailment in the free time I could have at my disposal to do what I ought to do more – write. So, here I’m back blogging.

The year is 2010. Let’s continue from where we left off in the previous post. In November 2010, two years and some months in Canada, we took a three-night tour to Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec City and Kingston in a bus. I’ve blogged about the visit earlier and if you’d care to read about it, click here: Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec City.

The grand Notre Dame Basilica in Montreal

In Quebec City, while strolling down the market, we met Jean-Philippe Vogel, a pen-and-ink artist who was selling sketches of cityscapes on the street. These were exquisite and detailed. I bought a few and recently gifted to a dear friend and another to a colleague.

We returned to Toronto with a promise that we’d go back to Quebec City and Montreal frequently. But such is the fate of immigrants that the lure of “back home” overrides every other destination. In 2011, we returned to India for the first time after immigrating to Canada, but we’ll talk about that later. 

Sheridan Medal for Academic Excellence

With Nelson and Laura
at the Sheridan Convocation

One of the major highlights of 2010 was my graduation from Sheridan College where unsurprisingly I won the Sheridan Medal for Academic Excellence (silver medal) for coming first in the class. After a couple of decades in journalism, both as a journalist and as a teacher, I guess I knew a bit more than the others on the subject.

It was the first convocation that I attended in my life. I’d skipped the one when I got my university degree nearly three decades ago. It was also the last time I met nearly all of them. And but for a few, I don't really miss their absence. Joyce, Yoko, Teenaz have become friends.

I was working on my manuscript and learnt about the 3-Day Novel festival that is held during the Labor Day weekend. I entered the competition and worked furiously to complete a manuscript in three days. It was terrible in quality but such a great experience that I did that for the next three years. At present, I’ve four novella length stories that I plan to cut down to short story length.

I continued to go to readings by other authors, and participate in literary events. Although 2010 was not the first time I participated in the Word on the Street festival held towards the end of summer, it was definitely the first year when I knew many authors. 

I met Robin Maharaj, whose novel The Amazing, Absorbing Boy I’d recently read. Katherine Govier had her new novel The Ghost Brush published the same year and both Robin and Katherine were reading at the festival. My friend Dawn, whose short story collection was to be published by TSAR later that year, was reading at the Diaspora Dialogues tent.

That year, I also attended the play reading of Habib Tanvir’s classic Charandas Chor. Sally Jones, who ran Rasik Arts in those days, had organised it. Another play that she staged at the Harbourfront Centre was about Tagore as a painter. Tea with Tagore had Ishwar Mooljee enacting the role of Tagore. I blogged about it, too, and should you be interested in reading it, click here: Tea with Tagore.

One of the most pleasant surprises of my life was to meet a college friend Nandita Desai (now Nandita Chawla) at the Harbourfront Centre. In high school, I’d a major crush on her, and everyone (but she) knew about it.  It’s such a strange thing about life. I exchanged polite pleasantries with someone who'd meant so much to me three decades ago. It all works out the way it’s meant to be. I was with my wife and son and she was with her husband and her daughter.  

That year, we also went to the Masala Mehndi Maasti, which turned out to be a washout thanks to torrential rains, but I was happy to hear Janice Goveas read excerpts from her play Dinner with Akbar. And, of course, Meena Chopra invited me to the launch of her collection of poems Glimpses of Setting Sun and an exhibition of paintings. If you’d like to read about the book launch event, click here: Meena Chopra.