Recap of my trip to Calgary with delegates from the Centre for Indo-Canadian Studies and Research out of the University College of the Fraser Valley.

What a weekend! Got into Calgary on the Friday and spent the weekend making the rounds in Calgary, meeting people to get the Centre off the ground. Really enjoyed the time I spent with Skip Bassford, Parm Bains, Tok Herar, Paul Wadhawan and especially Madeleine Hardin.

On Friday night we had a really successful roundable at the hotel where 20 guests showed up to hear about the Centre. The discussion really centred in on the actual state of the Indian Community in Calgary as well as the needs of those of Indian descent living in Calgary. What we really learned was that not all the items we would normally go to a family in BC would be applicable to those in Alberta. This is primarily because families in BC could be third and fourth generation Canadians where as those in Alberta for the most part are first generation. This made for really interesting conversation where for example, history preservation was lower on the list than social integration and access to services and repository information for the community.

Saturday, my family hosted a small getogether at my family’s place. We got a ton of support and a very passionate amount of dialog from those including Geet Shergill and Rupie Sachdeva. Pics to be linked shortly. Mom made a nice lunch for us all but I wasn’t able to endulge as I had booked a meeting with MP Deepak Obrhai as well in the afternoon. Poor Tok and Skip had to come along so they, too, were deprived of mom’s good cooking.

Saturday night, we went out to spend time at Raj Mahajan’s place. Really nice guy – funny how things are, Raj’s wife is a good friend of Mom’s. Paul and Raj have known each other for years and went to school together in India.

Sunday we made the rounds to the Punjabi and Hindu churches which generated some interest then we were off on a plane. Overall a very successful mission to Calgary.