Taking a break from posts

After two weeks of posting, I decided I would take a short break and contact some people who were in Manitoba during those early years, give them the link to this page, and ask if they can send me some input about the community's early years. If I don't succeed, I will resume my own sequence of memories and events!! So, please contact me.

I am looking for records - in the form of write-ups of their memories, newspaper clips, or photographs.

I am also looking for names and addresses of people who can contribute posts that talk about their own memories or of community milestones.

For example, when I first arrived, I heard about a family that would invite all who were from India in Manitoba to their Diwali dinner, and that they lived on Pembina Highway. The name as I recall was Professor Sarwate and that he was in the Engineering department of the U. of Manitoba, and that they had recently left. I even remember tracing down the house in which they had lived and thinking how small the house was and how lively the community get-together would have been.
But so far, I have not been able to find anyone who has heard of them, and I have forgotten who told me about them.

That is the kind of information that would really help build this blogsite.

Rubena Sinha

Since I am in the mid 1980s in my recording, before I go back to 1967, let me place on record some pictures from 1985.

Rubena (Ruby) Sinha was an indispensable artiste-in-residence for the community until she left for Toronto about ten years ago. In the early years, she was involved in most of the cultural events that took place. Every year she produced at least one stage event – a dance sequence, shadow play or dance drama. Among her productions of the 1970s were Meera (of which I wrote in an earlier post), Chandalika, and Lila (the story of Mahadevi Akka.)

Trained under Uday Shankar, Ruby was versatile and developed her artistic talent in Winnipeg, spending long hours on training actors and dancers for her productions. Already versed in Bharata Natyam, Manipuri and Kathak, she went back to India and learnt Mohini Attam. She learnt flamenco dancing. Later, she branched into fusion theatre, combining music and dance forms from India and the west.

These pictures are from her 1985 production, Image of Woman.

Hindu Society Summer Camps for Youth

While I am on the topic of Hindu Society, let me fast forward to the mid-1980s, when the Hindu Society organized summer camps at Riding Mountain ProvincialPark. The energy behind the camps was Mohan Mathur, who had the support of a large number of parents who volunteered to be in charge of the cooking, the prayer-meetings, lectures and games.

It was a wonderful time. The campsite was taken over by Hindus for almost a whole week every summer for two or three years. The day started at 6 a.m. with teenagers being hauled out of bed for the morning prayers – a Surya namaskar first, led by Shubha Sridhar, an exquisite dancer trained in Mrinalini Sarabhai’s school Darpana, followed by chanting of familiar temple prayers. There were lectures and activity sessions, followed by games in the late afternoon. In addition to frisbee and volleyball, campers played the popular Indian sport of kabaddi. Then there was the campfire every night. After the campers went to bed, the songs at the campfire continued – popular Hindi film songs, often from the 1960s and 1970s, usually led by Pratibha Bhalla.

Mohan Mathur left his headship of the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Manitoba in the late 1980s, to become Dean at the University of Western Ontario. The leadership behind the summer camps was not as spirited as before.

I was Camp Director for the 1990 camp and this was part of my report.

From Uma Parameswaran’s “Summer Camp Report 1990”

Camp 1990 was held during the long weekend in August (August 4-5-6) at Birds’ Hill park. In the past, I have helped in the first two camps of the Society and was Camp Director for a camp held within the city with the Mandir as base. However, this time as Director of the Camp, it was very different and I would like to share my thoughts on the experience.

The weekend confirmed for me once again the worthwhileness of the effort. A camp banner was made by the younger children with adult help; teenagers had a lot of outdoor games and fun; Gopalji Pandey’s art class was a great success; an evening discussion led by Babu Hegdekar highlighted the need for making such discussions among youngsters an ongoing activity of the Society; the havan, led by Chandra Sharma, gave the campers an experience of the solemnity and celebration of Hindu ritual. Significantly, the open house concept of the meals and campfires brought visitors from the city to the park to get involved in the fellowship of a Hindu camp. The camp concluded with the observance of Rakshabandhan and it was very heartwarming to see girls repledging sibling bonds and also adopting new brothers.

……

….Our children must be given a simple primer of Hinduism. Our … openmindedness often confuses children. To every one of their simple questions such as Is there a God? What should we say when our friends laugh at the idea of a monkey god? Is Krishna God? Did Krishna die? we often give answers that are totally incomprehensible to child-minds … and about the Mahabharata and Ramayan being “stories” whose historicity we cannot prove, about Krishna’s death reflecting a higher truth, about evolution of monkey to man etc.

My own answers would be, Yes, there is a God who appears in different forms to different people at different times of civilization; since Hinduism recognizes the interconnectedness of all creatures, different manifestations of God are associated with different animal forms; yes Krishna is God as surely as the earth moves around the sun, and he lived on earth, born to Devaki in Mathura and brought up by Yasoda in Gokul and Brindavan, and when he grew up he was king of Dwaraka and showed himself to Arjuna as the Supreme One, and gave Arjuna and us the Bhagavad Gita.

Children need simple and reassuring answers; given that, in due time they will mature and understand the complexities of Hinduism. ..

It is a pragmatic necessity that it in order to keep our children informed and Hindu, we launch on such a project and be informative without being dogmatic.

………

Camps should develop a sense of initiative, leadership and responsibility in campers. I would like to see activities that make young campers work under the direction of older campers. Pitching tents, collecting firewood, preparing food and cleaning up should be done mainly by the campers and not by adults…. My own view is that we tend to pamper our younger generation no end without giving them any of the responsibilities which the society in which we live normally gives to children.

……….

I am more convinced than ever that camps will do for our younger generation what the Sunday satsangs do for us, namely promote a sense of fellowship and the attitude of good-neighbourliness that is so essential especially during family crises such as illness and bereavement.

To the old adage that the family that prays together stays together, I would add that the family that plays together stays together. The Hindu Society family should ensure that our youngsters play and pray together, and camps are one of the ways of doing so.

1970: Founding of the Hindu Society of Manitoba

The Hindu Society of Manitoba was started in 1970, and inaugurated on May 23, 1970. Two of the founding members were Dr. Atish Maniar and Mr. Vir Bharti. I remember Atish Maniar saying he regretted that Hindus could not get married in a Hindu ceremony in Winnipeg and so he worked towards making that practical. I recall Vir Bharti saying we spend twenty four hours a day seven days a week on material aspects of life – surely we should be able to spare two or three hours to come together for communal worship so that our children get to know what Hinduism is about.

In 1970, Vir Bharti initiated the Sunday School, that was formalized in 1978 as Vidya Bhavan. During the mid 1970s, Diwali, festival of lights, was celebrated with a community dinner and cultural show held at a rented church hall.

There were fifty members in 1970-1971. In the beginning, the prayer meetings were held in people’s houses, then at Thawani Towers, and then at the International Centre on Redwood.

In 1979, a church building that stood at 854 Ellice Avenue was bought for $75,000. There was a daycare in the building during the week until their lease ran out. The pictures show three phases of its growth, the first two showing the temple in 1979 and 1995 respectively, and the third one with the kalasha on top, the crowning glory of a temple, installed in 1998.

Today the Hindu Society of Manitoba runs two temples, one on Ellice Avenue and one on St.Anne’s Street, has a membership of about six hundred families, a congregation of a thousand or more people on festival days, and religious activities almost every day at one or other of the two temples. It has a full time priest at St. Anne’s, a part-time priest at Ellice, and several other priests licensed to perform marriages.

But we must remember it started because of a few individuals who had a dream in the late 1960s, and worked to make it come true.

Still in 1967

(I invite comments from people who were in Winnipeg during the early years. I am sure they have some clippings and pictures that would add to the history of our community.)

Here is a gem from Spring 1967.

This newspaper clipping is dated May 20, 1967 and announces the Festival of India, a display of fashions from India, handicrafts, dance and music, and sale of Indian foods and dolls dressed in Indian outfits. It was organized by “a group of women from India” as a Canadian Confederation centennial project and co-sponsored by the Winnipeg branch of Altrusa International.

It was held on Thursday the 25^th of May at St. Mary’s Academy concert hall, and the proceeds of the ticket ($1.00) sale were to go for famine relief and other Altrusa projects in India.

The person modelling the Maharashtrian sari is Manju Darsi, Rev. Raman’s niece who had just arrived. The childern are Priti Bhatia and her brother Guru, while in the other picture, Jiti Bhatia in a Rajasthani outfit holds a handcrafted vase. And the third picture is of Ganga Dakshinamurti on her veena. Ganga was associated with Altrusa Club.

As one can see, few though in numbers, the community did not lack talent or resources to showcase the best of India to the larger Winnipeg community.

It is possible that I emceed the Fashion Show, though I cannot vouch for it. I did a lot of script-writing and emceeing in those early days.

For one of the shows, I recall being asked to write the script and being told a white person would read it – I said I would tolerate it that time since the other person had already been asked but that we should stand tall and choose emcees from our own community instead of looking for a white speaker. Our accents may be different but that is who we are, and as long as we spoke clearly, accents should not matter. I think the organizer of that event, I forget which event it was, saw the logic of my argument and asked me to be emcee for that event. She must have known the other person well enough I guess to disengage her after inviting her!!

1967 - My Newspaper Piece

The second event re: my writing that took place in 1967 was my piece in Leisure magazine, the weekend section of the Winnipeg Free Press.

In those days, freelancers had more opportunities, it seems to me, than today when columnists and syndicated writers have taken over.

In India, newspapers used to have what was called a “middle,” a small section on the Editorial page where there was an essay of sorts written by freelancers. It was usually written in the lighter vein and on topics of current interest. I wrote such an article, Curling: That rock-throwing Game, and sent it off to the Editor.

It appeared in Leisure Magazine (the weekend section of Winnipeg Free Press) dated April 22, 1967.

Yes, it was my first (and last) freelance newspaper writing in Canada. So of course I have to treasure the slip of paper that says I actually got paid for it!

My foray into the sport of curling is worth remembering. Brent took us to his curling club just so we could get to see the great prairie pastime, or so I thought. But before we knew it, we were in a team that so badly needed two players that they took us sight unseen. Poor guys, they were stuck with us for the season. P at least tried to sweep and run the way one is supposed to, but I just threw my rocks and stood shivering while the skip yelled his instructions and the other two slid around sweeping. The story starts off as fiction with fictional names but goes on to say something about an immigrant’s view of a national sport.

Here it is. Curling: That Rock-Throwing Game

My First Writing Prize

Memory cares not a whit for chronology though it seems to follow the call of associative connections. It was snowing yesterday and that led me to my first snowwoman post.

But now I realize I overlooked two very significant events in my writing life that happened during my first year in Winnipeg, while we still lived on Wellington Crescent.

One was that I won the Lady Eaton short-story contest of spring 1967. There was a newspaper announcement from the local branch of Canadian Authors Association about a contest calling for a short story, and I set to work.

I had just bought a typewriter. It was a Smith-Corona Super Sterling bought at Eaton’s on the 9^th of February 1967 for $99.50. (It is still somewhere in the basement, waiting to be sold as a RETRO on Kijiji.) But in those days my Muse needed the feel of pen on paper, and I wrote in long hand.

My short story, The Door I Shut Behind Me was about a young postdoctoral guy who comes to Winnipeg from India. I got a call one day from a female voice. I don’t know who was more surprised, I for having won the first prize or she on finding out the writer was not a man but a woman.

The story came easily enough but it was about seven thousand words, written in long hand, and I worked harder on condensing it to 5000 words than I had on writing it. Prune, snip, count, prune, snip, count,(remember there was no computer to do the counting) at last it was 4999 words and I typed it and sent it off.

A couple of years later, when I had started teaching at the University of Winnipeg, I was asked to be a judge of the same annual contest along with a colleague, Dr. Marta Kruuner. One of the entries was very much better than all others but it was well over 5000 words. We decided to give it the prize anyway. Is it right or wrong to bend rules?

My story has been published several times, each time with a change here and there, more pruning actually!       Here is one version of the Door I Shut Behind Me.

As I read the story again in the present context, I am pleasantly surprised to note that though the story is total fiction, I seem to have foreseen the smug attitudes that would develop in the community during the 1970s, the decade of crowded community parties.

My First Snowman or Rather My First Snowwoman

My first snowfall day was when I was a graduate student at Indiana University in 1963. I lived in a Graduate Residence, Johnston Hall, at the time. My friend Linda Lubrano ran into my room telling me to come out RIGHT NOW. I ran behind her to the front of Johnston Hall calling out, “What what?” Snow, she said, snow – and there it was – the slightest of snowfalls, wispy flakes coming down lazily, but enough to make me jump with excitement, and Linda was even more excited that she was there to see someone seeing snow for the first time!

1967: It was a snowman-building day at 892 Grosvenor. Mrs. Steginus and I, helped (or hindered) by Evelyn and Michael, built this magnificent snowwoman. She stood on the lawn for many days but one day someone knocked off her head and Michael was most distraught – he cried that someone had broken off "my Mommy’s head!!" Sure the snowwoman looked a little like Mrs. S. in her apron (Mrs. S. baked the most scrumptious cakes and pastries) but who can read the transferences that go on in a child’s mind?

The next summer, the City repaved Grosvenor Avenue, and Michael spent the whole day everyday at the large window of our living room upstairs where he could get a clear view of the street. It never tired him, watching them dig up the road, throw gravel and roller it down, day after day till the asphalt was laid and dried. He had to be dragged down by his mother, "Michael wo bist du?" Where else but watching the machines and hard-hatted men on the street?

892 Grosvenor Avenue - 1967

1967 Spring and Summer

Our apartment lease was due to run out April 30, 1967 and so it was time to start looking. We liked the area where we were, and so during my afternoon walks I looked for "To Let" signs. There was a very impressive block, Crescent Court, on the corner of Wellington Crescent and ?? - even from the outside it looked like its apartments would be spacious, bright and airy. But there was no "To Let" sign on it.

Talking to Brent about it, he laughed. That, he said, in its heyday had about eighteen rooms, each with its own bathroom, some of which had gold-dipped faucets and fittings. Yes, it was once a busy place. And he laughed again. I did not catch on and he had to explain that it had been an upscale brothel in the past.

Dave Godfrey has an abstract and incomprehensible story that I love - The Hardheaded Collector. It is an elaborate metaphor looking at Canada in the centennial year of Confederation. Seven men start from Queen Charlotte Islands and move eastwards to work on a contract they have been given, and one drops off from the group in each province. The leader alone reaches the destination but he is told that the contract was valid only if all seven had reported for duty. At a metaphorical level, the idea is that a country whose parts do not work together cannot function. It is also about the rise of individualism and decline of the concept of collective good. The main features of each city they stop at are given - for Winnipeg it is mosquitoes and brothels, and the member who drops off in Winnipeg is delighted with the latter.

Speaking of some socialites and their pastimes, I soon found out that living on Wellington Crescent had its advantages. No one ever asked for an ID when we signed cheques that had our address on them - 608-250 Wellington Crescent - the name had its own status. However, a sociologist colleague who knew Winnipeg well told me that people of social standing lived west of Academy - those who lived east of Academy didn't count!

One evening, when P and I were walking towards Stafford on Grosvenor, we saw a little girl holding her father's hand as they walked from Stafford. The doll-like loveliness of the girl attracted us and so did the To Let sign on the brick-front, well-elevated house into which they walked. We followed them and asked if we could see the apartment. That is how we met Mr. Steginus and Evelyn. Mr. Steginus was a cheerful man who spoke with a European accent. He explained that they lived downstairs and were renting out the upstairs.

We loved the suite - it had two large rooms with oversize windows in addition to the bedroom, bath and kitchen. The only problem was that there was a tub but no shower. While others might ooh and aah about a tub bath, we from India could not think of sitting in a tub of soapy water - we wanted a shower. We said we would take the apartment if he could put in a hand-shower and change the toilet. Mr. S. readily agreed and we were willing to pay towards it. I don't remember if he asked us to or not but that was the beginning of a long friendship. Maybe he increased the rent by a few dollars. We met Mrs. S. and their little toddler, Michael. He looked exactly like his dad and the girl looked exactly like her mom. We couldn't believe it when they told us one day that the children were adopted!!!

April 30 was moving day and also the day the mother of all snowstorms hit Winnipeg. However, we did not have much to move, having lived in a furnished apartment. The rent here was much lower - just $98 in contrast to the the $180 we had been paying - no wonder Brent thought we were maharajahs when we took the first apartment.

We were not sure we would be in Winnipeg for more than a short stay and so we bought used furniture. but of such good quality that now they are treasured antiques. Each piece has its own story. We went to an auction place and bought two absolutely beautiful matching dressers, with ornately shaped mirrors, for a bid of $25 for both pieces as I recall!! Next week we bought a Singer desktop sewing machine for $10 for no reason other than because it was exactly similar to my mother’s except that this had an electric treadle. Fifteen years later, my friend Prabha Huzurbazar persuaded me to buy a newer model of Singer and she chose it for me. I left it at her apartment and she used it more in the few years they were in Winnipeg than I have used it in the thirty years since then. We also bought four tables with tacky laminate tops and removable legs for ten or twenty dollars, and we still have three of them stacked in a corner of the basement – my daughter says I just need to take digital photos and advertise them on Kijiji as RETRO to make a fortune.

The solid oak dining table with carved legs and matching chairs, buffet and china cabinet has the most interesting story. I used to scan the newspaper classifieds, and the description of a dining suite of solid oak, with matching buffet and a china cabinet was exactly what I was looking for – quality furniture. The owner, on the phone, told me her house was just at the bottom of the hill on (I forget the name of the street) in St. Boniface. So we drove there and went up and down but found no hill. We went to a gas station and phoned again, and were told other coordinates “at the bottom of the hill.” It turned out that the “hill” was the slightest of inclines which we never noticed in spite of driving up and down several times!! Prairie people’s concept of hills!!

In honour of my dining suite, I have used the story in my novella, Maru and the M.M.Syndrome!

To complete the story of my classical furniture, three years ago, I asked my daughter what we should keep for her in case we downsized and moved, and she said she would like to have only the furniture we had bought in 1967, and that we should junk everything else. (We are still living with the "junk.")

So I decided she might as well have them now instead of waiting till we were dead, and I had the movers move everything that was beautiful in our present house, including all the original paintings. The movers’ bill was a whopping $2800, or should I say a mere $2800 considering the sentimental value of the contents that were shipped to the U.S. She takes more care of them than I ever did, and I can enjoy them when we visit her!! I still have the Singer machine though, and if I ever have to sew something, I still prefer it to the newer one.

Dementia or was it poverty?

Dementia or poverty?

I kept a journal during the first year. I did many things that year that I never did once I got a job. Like keeping daily accounts, which I did because my mother used to do that. Every night she would sit at the dining table and fill in details in her book. Some years ago, when I was in India, I went through my late brother’s collection of “stuff” to see if I wanted to keep anything.

One of the few things I brought back with me was an Accounts Book of my mother’s. It had all kinds of details like the price of milk - of no earthly use one might say, but it gives one an idea of what life was like. Like, in my biography of C.V.Raman that has just come out, I have an anecdote of how he used to jokingly say he was born with a copper spoon in his mouth since his father earned the "princely sum" of ten rupees per month. But just how far would ten rupees have gone? may be a long way, considering a rupee had sixteen annas and each anna had twelve thambidis and the cost of many daily needs was in thambidis and not even in annas!

So also with the account book I kept for the first two years. I have interesting trivia, that in 1968 the Free Press subscription was a dollar for two weeks, that a haircut cost $1.50, and that eleven gallons of gas cost $5.00, and that is an imperial gallon, 4.5 litres!! We can compare these with our present rates and set it against our income then and now to see the real price of daily necessities.

Here are two pages from the journal I kept in 1966, which are not useful at all, but do give an idea of a new immigrant's observation of winter and of how ignorant we were, still are, about dementia. Note little details, like I say "drawing room" as one does in India, instead of "living room."

1^st to 4^th November, 1966

I looked out the drawing room window this morning. I was thrilled. A colourless coat of ice had formed on the river. Winter was here.

First, the October sun had seared leaves to the ground; men came in little machines and ground the yellow, dry leaves and the wind carried away the dust of whatever the machines had not picked up.

The wind carried away the ice crust too.

The sun usually rises at the corner of Wellington Towers, and the bleak blackwalled glass dome of St. Mary’s Academy flashes back the red ball and I could see the sun reflected on to my eyes. Today there is no sunrise and no sunset, only a luminous cloud moving across the southern horizon.

The next day the ice crust was not colourless but white. But the river still reflected light by night.

The next day the crust was thick and white except for the far edge and near the bank. Nor sun nor wind shall bring to life those petrified ripples and currents that streak whiter against the white surface of the Assiniboine.

Tuesday, 8^th November

This afternoon I went for a walk. The sun was shining brightly, the snow piled high on the sidewalks. I went down McMillan thinking I’d walk down Dorchester and buy buttermilk on my way back at Mini Mart that is at Dorchester and Lilac. I kept on but met neither Dorchester nor Lilac, so I turned off towards Corydon, where I turned left, resolving to return by the familiar roads now that I had my coordinates, for the cold was seeping into my snowboots., through my leotards on to my toes. We’d just have to do without buttermilk for the time being. I met an old lady with some grocery bags in her hand.

“Can you tell me where I am,” she asked me.

“This is Corydon, and that is Arbuthnot,” I said, “Where do you want to go?”

“Oh dear, oh dear. I’ve come too far, I think,” she said, and the way she said it sounded to me like something out of Alice in Wonderland. She was a non-descript old woman, in a faded blue coat, who had a rather well-featured face. Her mouth looked shrunk as though she had no teeth, but she did. Her dentures were yellow.

“What is the address you are looking for?” I asked.

“Lilac,” she said.

I told her Lilac was a couple of blocks away, and pointed out. “Ah yes,” she said, “I believe you are right, ah yes,” and she started walking in that direction. I decided to join her.

“They steal,” she said, “where I stay, they steal little things every day. I don’t mind giving, but they steal and that I don’t like.”

I was surprised. “That’s too bad,” I commiserated.

We walked on.

“Cold, eh?” she said.

“Oh yes,” I said.

“I had to wear my cotton coat,” she said. “They stole my fur coat yesterday.” Indeed, she was wearing only a cotton coat, a blue one with minute checks. She must have been quite cold.

“Do you live in an apartment?” I asked, wondering if she lived in an old folks’ home.

“I am sick and tired of Leila,” she said.

“Leila?” I asked, surprised. Leila was a street in the north end of town, or maybe it was the name of one of her friends.

“Yes, Lilac,” she said peevishly. “I am sick and tired of it. We are leaving. We’ll go back to Winnipeg.”

By then we had reached Lilac and we parted ways.

Reading this now, I know how ignorant I was, I guess we all were, about the ravages of dementia and Alzheimer’s.

1966-1968

1966-1967 winters

When trying to organize the posts in this blog, it makes sense to be chronological rather than thematic - I got carried away into thematic connections in the last post. So let me get back to 1966.

We drove our new car to the Assiniboine Park Zoo and I was amazed to see the peacocks and the tiger. The picture of the peacock was perhaps taken in the summer, for I don't suppose they dance in winter. But the tiger-photo was definitely taken the winter of 1966. I felt so sorry for this majestic tropical animal cooped up in the freezing cold of Winnipeg - until I found out that this is a Siberian tiger.

The Math department used to have parties very often, where the faculty and their spouses just got together and socialized. It was just fun to get together and so we did. It was a small department at the time. P was the only one from India. But that would soon change. His presence must have assured the Head that people from India are very good, and we had a flood of people from India joining the Math department in the next two or three years. Among them were R. Venkataraman, R. Padmanabhan, P. Shivakumar, Kanta Gupta (all of whom still live in Winnipeg) and Narain Gupta (1936-2008), and one Dr. Gandhi who stayed only for one or two years but whom I remember.


I remember him because he and his wife provided me with the first experience of the overcrowded dinner parties that became the norm in the community once people bought their own houses. But this was in his apartment. He invited the whole department crowd plus other non-department friends to celebrate his child's birthday. There were about fifteen different dishes on the table, and about thirty people crammed into a small space!


There was another Indian in the Statistics department in addition to Sapan Sinha - Kocherlakota Subrahmaniam (1935-2009). Both he and his wife Kathleen (Kathy) were on the faculty. Perhaps they came the same year I did but I remember that Kathy and I used to have telephone conversations almost every day during my second year in Winnipeg, about totally inconsequential things and some important decisions as well. They came from the U.S. and they returned to the U.S. after retirement, perhaps because both their sons were in the U.S.

A good thing that happened that first year was that I discovered the Winnipeg Badminton Club. I forget how I did that but it was great that I did - remember I was not working, and beautiful as the view from the apartment was, there is just so much of snow on the streets and ice on the river that one can watch.


Winnipeg Badminton Club was on River Avenue, not at all far from our apartment. I had been a badminton player representing my college in my undergraduate days, and it was good to get back to the sport. The women's badminton group met every Wednesday and my level was of play was good enough to earn some respect from the other women. Richard was our pro. (Imagine my surprise when his daughter was in one of my classes many years later!!


I made some friends at the Badminton Club, and Marianne Hildes especially became a good friend - she lived in River Heights and gave me a ride to and from the Club, and sharing car-rides is a great way of building friendships.

1972 - MEERA, written for Rubena Sinha's production

My play “Meera” was written for Rubena Sinha’s production.

(In this blogsite I plan to record the early history of the Indo-Canadian community in Manitoba through narrating my own experiences and memories of people and events. As it stands, it is a record of my own memories and of my work but it is my hope that readers of this blog will contact me with their own memories of people and events of the 1960s and 1970s so that the recording might expand into something useful for those interested in the history of our community.)

I will be repeating the above header from time to time to remind readers what this blog is about - a step towards a recording of our community's growth.

Major holidays and festivals used to be observed as community events – India’s Independence Day (August 15), Republic Day (January 26), Diwali and Dussehra – with a stage event featuring music and dance by local talents. If the special day fell on a weekday, the celebration would be held the weekend following. The events were usually held at the University of Manitoba, mainly because many from India were associated with the University as faculty or as students and it was easy to get permission to use the auditorium facilities and parking spaces of the University.

The stage events often had Fashion Shows, where the different regional costumes of India were modelled by community members while the emcee described each costume. We were a talented community at the time, and though few in numbers, each had something to offer.

Given the small numbers within the community, it was amazing to see the wealth of jewellery, costumes and artefacts we came up with, and given the vast regional differences in India, the show was a display of colours and variety such as no other community (Ukarainian excepted) could bring forward. My talent was in writing and speaking, and so I often wrote scripts for the productions and emceed the fashion shows, explaining the differences in customs and costumes that one can see in India.

One of the better events we had was in 1972, the staging of a dance drama – Meera. It was sponsored by the Hindu Society of Manitoba which had recently been started - I hope some reader of this blog can write a brief history of the beginnings of the Society.

The programme brochure states that the address for the Society is 2-E, 1975 Corydon, the Thawani Towers. Interestingly enough, the brochure also has an advertisement from Pioneer Apartment Owners (probably Mr. Thawani’s), Manitoba’s First High-Rise Ownership Development for an opportunity to own one’s apartment. Prices are from $15,920 and the down payment required is $1500 paid in ten monthly instalments.

The main inspiration behind the production was Rubena (Ruby) Sinha, one of our leading members with an artistic flair and enthusiasm that spearheaded this and many other cultural events. The lead dancing role (Meera) was played by Ruby, and Krishna was Ganga Dakshinamurti, with Raghu Dhruvarajan as child Krishna.

Mohan Thawani, Vijay Prasad, Sheela and Neena Maniar, Pamela Sinha and Indu Venkataraman were child Krishna’s friends. The gopis were Aruna Augamiya, Ratna Bose, Sandhya Desai, Usha Desai, Kala Dholakia and Ray Manthie.

On the sitar was Kalpana Mitra, who has been one of our major artistes all these years.

We had to make do with the resources at hand, which were not many, considering the community was still fewer than a couple of hundred people, and we did not have the current facility of downloading the music of the world at the touch of a computer key. So I wrote the script around the musical and acting resources we had.

Many of the main episodes in Krishna's life were depicted as Meera's thoughts and words as she waits for Krishna. Thus there were two Meeras on stage, Sydney Stewart sitting on stage left throughout with the spotlight on her only between scenes, and Ruby emerging from behind her to dance.

The show was staged on Friday, 7^th of April, 1972 at the University of Manitoba.

I invite Comments on where the individuals mentioned above are now and relevant details about them or about similar events.

The script can be read here.

Anand Thawani

September 1966

Another person we met soon after coming to Winnipeg was Anand Thawani. He was a man with many ideas and the initiative to act on them. I recall that our first meeting did not go all that well - it might have been during the week we were looking for an apartment. Knowing he lived downtown and on the University bus route, we thought it might be a good idea to see his apartment, and he had said we could drop in any time. So we went one evening, but it was precisely during the hour Peyton Place was on TV and his wife excused herself, saying she had to watch the show. This was before the tape-and-watch-later technology and so if you missed an episode you could never see it again. We made some casual conversation and left after a few minutes. However, later I had many interesting interactions with him, and he was indeed a man of action and through the 1970s, he contributed to the community in various ways.


He was an engineering contractor by profession and he was the first in Winnipeg to initiate the own-your-own-apartment concept. Popular in India, the condominium concept was unknown in Winnipeg, until he built an apartment complex on Corydon Avenue. Community-minded that he was, he reserved two suites on the ground floor for community use. One was to encourage people from the East Indian community to have prayer meetings (in their own religion, whether it was Hindu, Muslim or Christian.) This was a broad-minded concept at a time when there were no temples, gurudwaras or mosques in Winnipeg and he must be given credit. I recall going there for Hindu observances, and just the other day a friend recalled how they had the Bengali Sarawati-puja celebrations in that apartment.

The building was named Thawani Towers because, as I recall, the premier Duff Roblin insisted it should be named after the man who had brought the concept to Winnipeg. We need more buildings and plaques that carry names of members of our community - it is an honour to both the smaller community for having one of its members recognized and the larger community for recognizing our contributions. Sadly, however, sometime in the 1980s the board that ran the condominium decided to change the name and so Mr. Thawani's name got obliterated from the only building in Winnipeg that carried an Indo-Canadian name.

Mr. Thawani was also the first to initiate a television show on the community channel - VPW Channel 9, located on Gertrude Street near crazy corner as the intersection of Pembina, Corydon and Osborne is called. His show was called Friends of India, and he asked me to be host of the show once a month. This was around 1978, and the next year I started my own show - PALI (Performing Arts and Literatures of India.)


Mr. Thawani died in 1991. His wife, Leila, died on January 5, 2011 at the age of 85. The obituary had a detail that I did not know - she was one of a family of fourteen children, and she came to Winnipeg as an M.D.

September 26, 1966

On Monday we went to the University of Manitoba and met with various members of the administration. Much paper-work was done. We met with some other members of the department – Professors Hank Finlayson, Diane Johnson, Gerry and Nora Losey, all of whom have been our friends ever since. . There were several others – Professor Ewell and Professor Ewing, one of them was a young African American, I forget who and the other close to retirement. Another colleague was Brent Prendergast, who became a very good helper in our process of settling down. He was a wonderful conversationalist and kept us in fits of laughter.

Roy had told us we could take our time looking for a place to live because our moving expenses would take care of our hotel charges for some days, but we found that even our plane-tickets were well over the allotted moving expenses of $1000, and so we figured we should first move to a less expensive motel. We did, to a motel on Pembina Highway, that was close to the University and on the bus route as well.

I recall our apartment hunting – Brent said there was a new block on Mayfair Place and offered to drive us there, but it is on a one-way street off Donald and could not be accessed while driving north, and he kept crossing the Donald Bridge several times and turning around but never turning off on the right street when driving south, and after several such attempts to see the new highrise building, we gave up.

I distinctly remember looking at Adamar Manor on Pembina but the other day I was told it was built only in 1972!! So it must have been another building – perhaps Arizona Plaza – but it would not take pets or children we were informed and since we definitely planned on starting a family, we had to find some place else.

(As an aside, our health insurance papers said we would not get pregnancy-maternity coverage unless we had been in the country for nine months prior to a baby’s birth, and so I was keeping my fingers crossed that I was not already pregnant! I needn't have worried; my first - and only - child was a long time coming.)

Next day, we drove along Grant Avenue, where there were several apartment blocks. But then we noticed in the newspaper that an apartment was for sublet, on Wellington Crescent. Since Brent lived on that street, first we saw a couple of highrises that were newly built on the river-bank. The rent seemed high, but the laundry was free and Brent joked that I could always take in other people’s laundry and make up for the high rent. Then we went to the advertised sublet - #608 at 250 Wellington Crescent. It was a luxuriously furnished apartment, owned by Mrs. Genser whose family ran one of the very successful furniture businesses in the city. She was an old lady, who spent her winters in warm Florida and rented out her apartment October 1 to April 30 every year. On knowing the rent was a high $180 per month, Brent thought it was just right for maharajahs from India and we signed the papers and moved in on October 1.

Next came the choice of a car. Having worked for two years (1963-1965) in the U.S., Parameswaran had his driving license (I had taken my driving school course at Indiana University where I studied on a Smith Mundt-Fulbright scholarship for a year, but I had not driven much at all). We went to several dealerships and decided on Inman Motors – on Main Street - and bought a turquoisish-blue1966 Chevrolet Biscayne for $2750. Parameswaran had some money saved, and he paid cash for the car, the logic of which totally eluded Brent, (why pay cash when one could get credit?) but which was consistent with the way we had been brought up – never to buy anything we could not afford to pay in cash!

Our apartment block had an underground garage, and on the very first day we got a scratch steering through what I thought was a garage door that was far too narrow. But I think the dealer had the scratch painted over and it didn’t show at all, and the door expanded with practice:)

Arrival in Winnipeg

Introduction:
I am Uma Parameswaran. I plan to use this blogsite to record the early history of Indo-Canadians in Manitoba through a narration of my own experiences and memories of people and events of the era 1965-1985. It will start as a record of my own memories and works but I invite readers to comment on their memories of the people and events of those times so that the repertoire of our memories will expand the historical content. All the writing is mine but my technical assistant is my daughter, Raji, who will help upload texts and pictures.

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My husband and I arrived in Winnipeg on Friday, 23^rd of September, 1966. He had been appointed Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics and we had flown from India to Montreal and on to Winnipeg. We were met at the airport by Professor Roy Dowling. He brought greetings and regrets from the Head of the Department, Nathan Mendelsohn, who could not come in person because it was Rosh Hashanah. Roy drove us downtown to Gordon Downtowner Motor Hotel on Ellice Avenue. Having made sure we were comfortably settled, he bid goodnight saying he would see us again on Monday morning and drive us to the University. It was already evening, and so we went to bed early for we had been on the road as it were for about thirty six hours.

The next morning, we went for a walk. The air was already chilly, for us anyway. We turned right onto Portage Avenue, and saw the Hudson Bay store, with the Union Jack waving in the morning breeze. It was a bit of a shock to see the flag that had long been got rid of in India flying high over the land to which we had just immigrated! Somehow, it had never occurred to me that by immigrating to Canada we had opted for the Union Jack!

After breakfast, back in our room, we wondered what to do next. The telephone directory gave us an idea – to look for Indian names. We went through names common to south India and came across a Raman! Rev. P.K.Raman, the page told us, lived on Langside Street, and his phone number was..... So we phoned him. He welcomed us to Winnipeg and invited us to dinner at their house that evening. I can’t remember if we walked there or were given a ride.

Rev. Raman and his wife were most cordial and introduced us to the other guests. Sapan Sinha (1928-2006) was there – his wife Rubena was in India. Dakshi and Ganga Dakshinamurti were there, as was Koruthu (Ken) Eapen who had also arrived recently, sponsored by his fiancée, (name?) There were several others, whose names I have forgotten. As I recall, we were given a ride back at night by the Dakshis, who lived in the new high rise block on Cumberland Avenue. They had a Rambler car – of course as always, there had been car-talk among the men that evening and so I remember their Rambler, though I forget if they really gave us a ride that night or not.

What I do remember is that the Ramans were like in loco-parentis to a whole generation of people who had come from India. Almost every weekend they hosted at least ten guests, and always had a great variety of dishes, vegetarian and non-vegetarian. The guests needed to do nothing other than talk and eat, and only after dinner would Mrs. Raman allow us women to help clean up – this was before the dishwasher age and so we could help scrub the pots and pans while the men talked about what else – cars and Indian politics.

It was, I think, a two bedroom apartment or may be there was only one bedroom, but all of us could comfortably sit around in the living room Over the next few weeks, we got to meet most of the Indians in Winnipeg at their apartment! I doubt there were more than fifty immigrants from India at the time.

Rev.Raman’s hospitality was proverbial. His mother tongue was Tamil, hers Telugu. They did not have children, but in later years they adopted two nieces, Manju and Mazlin, who were daughters of Mrs. Raman’s sister.

I would like to say something about the Ramans in these pages since they were one of the first, if not the first, Indians to settle in Winnipeg. From the Winnipeg Free Press obituaries, dated Nov. 1966 and Nov. 19, 2001, we have the following details about Rev. and Mrs. Raman. (I doubt there was anyone in Winnipeg who referred to them by their first names, Kodandaraman and Sugandha. They were always Rev. and Mrs. Raman to all of us).

Born in Madras on October 15, 1908, Poonamalle Kodanda Raman practised as minister and chaplain in the U.S. and in Winnipeg. Since Mrs. Raman’s obituary mentions that she came to Winnipeg in 1957, I assume both of them came to Winnipeg in 1957. Both were members of the Calvary Temple on Hargrave Street, where they started an Asia fellowship for Christians from Asia. Mrs. Raman was a school teacher in India. In Winnipeg, she worked at the Misericordia Hospital for 15 years. Rev. Raman passed away on Nov. 29, 1996, and Mrs. Raman on Nov. 16, 2001. Both are interred at the St. Vital cemetery.

The newspaper obituary does not mention Rev. Raman's Burma years, and so I record them here as I remember hearing from him.

Born Kodandaraman, he grew up in Burma during the years of the first World War. When Rangoon was bombed, he was part of the huge exodus of Indians who fled on foot back to India. During this time, he was helped by Christian missionaries, and converted to Christianity. He went on to study at a seminary and became a minister. His wife was born into a Christian family.

There are gaps to be filled. I recall hearing from him that he was a child when he fled Burma, but since the Burma exodus was during the second world war, it would make him in his thirties. He would have been a child during the first world war, but Burma was not a site during that war.
There could have been another major disturbance in Burma that drove Indians to flee back to India.