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.