March 31, 2012
Today's Winnipeg Free Press has a whole section on the local community of Manitobans who trace their roots to India. It tells readers about Indians who came to Manitoba not only from India but via East Africa and Fiji, via Pakistan and Bangladesh, via Guyana and the Caribbean islands, not to mention via Britain and the U.S. It also has a fine short history of roots, written by Melvin Durai, born in India, educated in Zambia and the U.S., and now living in Winnipeg, an Indo-Zam-Ameri-Canadian.
It also has an editorial piece by me - Gerald Flood of the Free Press phoned me last week to ask if I would write something for the section and I did. I wrote about my own experience of arriving in Winnipeg in the mid 1960s and said it is my story but also the story of my generation, of highly educated people who came to fill positions in educational and academic jobs, medicine, accountancy and business.
We started many of the original groups and associations that are now flourishing under the same or different names. Those who had their first organized instruction in the dance group that I started in 1978 had an offshoot in the 1980s and that had another offshoot which now stages a performance every year.
The small group of Hindus that used to meet for weekly prayers has now grown into the Hindu Society that runs two temples. Arti International, that was the first grocery store, long closed down but there are a dozen other grocery stores spread over the city. The first restaurant, that used to be across the Medical complex on Bannatyne is now flourishing elsewhere in Winnipeg and in Toronto too, I believe. There is an Indo-Canadian Business Directory that lists businesses run by members of our community and I plan to write about that soon. I picked up the 2012 edition just the other day.
The coverage that this blogsite got from the Indo-Canadian Telegram last month, elicited some feedback, but may be the Free Press coverage that cites this blogsite will bring more input from the early-comers to Manitoba, input that I would welcome.
Let me wait a few days longer to get community input before I start again on my daily blogs.
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