IndoCanadian section in Winnipeg Free Press

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.

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