Neighbourhoods

I’m white, I’m single and I’m from small-town Northern . I never thought I’d fit into . I couldn’t have been more wrong By Cynthia Brouse Indian Summer

IF YOU DRIVE EAST along on a weekend night, past Bollyhoo: the area I bought my house there a decade ago. I II at Broadview, past quiet , past Greenwood, that extends just used to tell people I lived in Little India, but the mundane view suddenly erupts in a metaphorical masala of a few blocks along I learned that was a misnomer, implying the fairy lights and Hindu gods, tandoor smoke and cumin, ads for in- Gerrard Street is a existence, either today or in the past, of a destination for South ternational phone cards, Bollywood movie posters, tabla beats and large number of East Indian residents. In Asians from Buffalo, ululating voices singing ghazals and bhangra—all crammed into a fact, only a handful had ever lived there. Detroit, and narrow street lined with narrow buildings that have seen better Pittsburgh The moniker applied by the local mer- days. Just as abruptly, after little more than a half-dozen blocks, it all chants, “,” does a bet- stops at Coxwell, where the “Upper Beach” begins and real estate ter job of describing what is really a busi- prices rise. Filmmaker Deepa Mehta set parts of her spoof, Bolly- ness district that serves a distant clientele. wood Hollywood, in the clothing and jewellery stores on this stretch. For a long time after I moved in, the only “It reminds me of the India I knew 40 years ago,” she says. people I’d see on Gerrard before 4 p.m. were

PHOTOGRAPHY BY KOUROSH KESHIRI SEPTEMBER 2005 LIFE 29 the white locals on their way to one of the I loved it. But occasionally it dollar stores, Coffee Times or greasy spoons was awkward living near a com- that bracket the area (the Chinese and Viet- mercial area that didn’t seem to namese residents shop farther west, near be catering to me. I could buy Broadview). The few non–South Asian es- cilantro on every corner, but not tablishments right in the Bazaar—a Greek if I needed it at 10:30 in the morn- hairdresser, a United church—stood out ing—and anybody wanting a bagel or a cap- TORONTO IS KNOWN for its ethnic business like outposts of an older world. puccino was out of luck. The Bazaar com- enclaves, and in some ways, the India What made me want to live there was the prised a distinctive spine whose ribs—the Bazaar is much like other immigrant areas. transformation that occurred later in the streets running north and south off Ger- Not many Greeks live in either, day and on weekends. The people who rard—belonged to an entirely different but the difference is that at one time they came to lick kulfi and chew paan, buy Bolly- body. And far from just two solitudes, there did. As in , Chinatown wood videos and Islamic books, or get out- were at least half a dozen. Besides the huge and , the Danforth attracted im- fitted in bridal saris and 22-karat-gold ethnic dividing line that is Gerrard, there migrants who lived in the surrounding wedding jewellery lived in Markham, Mis- were socio-economic lines, too. Though I houses and opened stores and restaurants sissauga or Malton. They weren’t likely to have a small-town, white working-class featuring the goods and cuisine of their na- show up in the Bazaar until the afternoon, background, I had spent 12 years in an tive culture. When they became more pros- but they were still hanging around late into apartment in the genteel Beach. But I perous, they moved to the suburbs, leaving the evening. As a woman living alone, I couldn’t afford to buy there. I was shocked behind a market that was enjoyed equally instantly felt safe here at night. The slender the first time I went to the No Frills on by locals and tourists, Greek and not. sidewalks were crowded with families: par- Coxwell and a fight broke out in the The India Bazaar grew the other way ents with children in strollers, many of the checkout line. One of my brothers was around. This forgotten little pocket—not women in saris or hijab; groups of teenagers; quick to inform me that the hole-in-the-wall quite Riverdale or Leslieville, sandwiched chattering grandparents. There were no bar near my house was known as “the Kick between the Danforth and the Beach—was nightclubs—just lots of nightlife. By mid- ’n’ Stab.” once dominated by Greek and Italian con- night, the shopkeepers had put away their As it turns out, I wasn’t the first to be struction workers and Anglo-Saxon people samosa stands, swept the sidewalks and drawn to the Gerrard India Bazaar for its who worked at Colgate and Wrigley in the locked the doors, and the whole scene went cheap real estate. It’s what created the strip days before those names branded condo home to the suburbs. in the first place. lofts. By 1972, when a north Indian busi-

30 TORONTO LIFE SEPTEMBER 2005 Eastern standard: South Asians make up 10 per cent of the GTA’s popu- lation. For many who settled in suburbs like Markham, and Malton, the Gerrard India Bazaar provides a welcome taste of home

nessman named Gian Naaz bought the old bers can buy Indian goods in the rival shop- school I did; we attended the same church; Eastwood Theatre, just west of Coxwell, to ping precincts that have sprung up closer to her sister married my uncle; our dads worked show Bollywood films, the strip had be- where they live, at Islington and Albion together. come poor and shabby. The Naaz Theatre Road or at Airport and Derry, where there’s After I moved to Toronto in 1975, it took drew hordes of South Asian visitors, but lots of parking and the stores are newer and me a long time to figure out how people most of them could already afford to live in shinier and less cramped. Still other South made connections in a city, by definition a better areas than the east end. Before long, Asian families, and their westernized off- conglomeration of strangers. In 20 years of an Indian record shop opened up nearby, spring, don’t care to buy their homeland’s apartment living, I formed bonds in univer- then a restaurant and a clothing store, and goods at all. And in the past few years, sity and at work, but I never knew my soon a South Asian market had been graft- there’s been a 70 per cent drop in American neighbours. When I went house hunting, I ed on top of a mostly white district. Old tourists to the Bazaar—thanks to SARS, the unconsciously sought a dense, multiplex hardware stores and hair salons became sinking greenback and September 11 (cross- network based around my home. I’ve suc- sari emporiums and sweet shops. An area ing the border wearing a turban and carry- ceeded in forging links in this neighbour- that covered barely three blocks was trans- ing a bag of chickpea flour can be a recipe hood, and some of them overlap with my formed into a destination not only for the for harassment). work and family life. If I go to a hardware inhabitants of South Asian communities And yet, if not as visitors, the Bazaar is store with my neighbour and run into a col- around the city and across , but also finally attracting South Asians who want to league or my cousin, I am filled with a sense for those in Buffalo, Detroit and Chicago. live there, many of them Pakistani refugees. of joyful belonging. Today, with more than 100 stores, it touts it- But there probably aren’t enough to replace Ours is a front porch kind of street. self as the largest South Asian market in the tourists. So the merchants are learning When I look up and down its length, I see a North America. Suppliers in Bangalore and to adapt. They know their future depends low-to-middle-income assortment: retirees, Delhi know all about Gerrard. By the time I on drawing non–South Asians, too. And as young parents who are teachers, nurses, moved there, a purposeful walk to the post the India Bazaar reached out to me, I began actors, social workers, cab drivers, beauti- office on a Saturday afternoon involved el- to return the attention. cians. Interspersed with the modest houses bowing my way through a wall-to-curb and cheerful gardens are a few scary-look- mass of sociable amblers. I sometimes felt SOCIOLOGISTS TALK ABOUT social networks: ing rental properties, with tenants like the like a tourist in my own neighbourhood. you have a “dense” network if you know a ones who decided to celebrate Canada Day Today, the crowds don’t seem so dense. lot of people in a given community, and you by lighting Roman candles in their kitchen There’s no shortage of South Asians in the have a “multiplex” network if those people garbage can at 7 a.m., narrowly escaping GTA: the group now makes up more than also know each other—in other words, if when the house burned to a shell. 10 per cent of the population of Toronto, you’re linked to people in more than one An old Chinese woman squats on the nearly as many as the Chinese. But the sub- way. In the small town where I grew up, the sidewalk before her front yard vegetable urban community has matured: its mem- girl who lived next to me went to the same garden, sharpening a meat cleaver against

SEPTEMBER 2005 TORONTO LIFE 31 Neighbourhoods the concrete with great, energetic whacks, ing on the Bazaar’s signature barbecued corn her bok choy hemmed in tidily by a set of on the cob, trying not to smear the fresh lime old refrigerator racks. The 2001 census juice and spices on their uniforms. They showed that in the immediate vicinity, al- were a symbol of how much things have most 14 per cent of residents named Chinese changed: one wore a turban; the other was as their home language, more than five times black; both were Sikhs. as many as claimed Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi or But legitimate complaints are bound to Bengali put together. But the most notable arise in any neighbourhood that exists incursion of home buyers on my street in cheek by jowl with a tourist area, where vis- recent years consists of single straight itors forget that the colourful venue is some- women, and gays and lesbians, who are fix- body else’s home. To some, Gerrard’s con- ing up the dilapidated century-old row gestion, the old buildings, the omnipresent houses and semis. pigeons, and the discarded corncobs and A gang of women on my street, who betel nuts are part of the Bazaar’s appeal. work mostly in education or the media, “It’s really pleasantly dirty now,” says formed a potluck dinner club that met Deepa Mehta, hastening to add that that’s monthly for more than five years, until the not a put-down. Others, however, don’t find value of our houses doubled and a couple of the dirt very pleasant, and the local Busi- members cashed in and moved away. New ness Improvement Area, one of the oldest in connections took their place: there’s Judy, the city, struggles to keep up with the gar- a belly dancing teacher from Trenton, and bage, mediating disputes with the residents’ “We went to the Bazaar every Sunday. My parents needed a dose of their own kind. But I hated it. I was more into Levis and hamburgers”

Diane, a United Way researcher whose status association and educating its members as a parent with kids in the local school, as about the inadvisability of feeding pigeons, well as her natural community-minded- which some South Asians believe brings ness, makes her a lot more plugged into the good luck. neighbourhood than I’ll ever be. They intro- A stalwart of the BIA, Balwant Jajj Singh duced me to their favourite Indian restau- is a leader in building bridges between the rant on Gerrard, The Famous, which has locals and the tourists. He owns B. J. Super- become something of a hangout. market and claims his is the only store in In 1977, this magazine published a story Canada that carries both South Asian spe- titled “Terror in Toronto,” which described cialties and western groceries; it’s also one violent, racially motivated attacks against of the only places on Gerrard that opens at immigrants from South Asia, who felt com- 10 a.m. This cross-cultural business strate- pelled to arm themselves when the police gy may make B. J. the most well-known— turned a blind eye. Since then, indifference and well-liked—person on the strip. A seems to have replaced ethnic conflict. handsome, turbaned Sikh with puppy-dog Racism still festers in pockets; this summer, eyes and a kind smile, he lives above his su- an elderly woman who attended my yard permarket with his extended family. Unlike sale railed against “those people,” decrying most of the merchants in the Bazaar, he the “foreign” smells, unfamiliar habits and truly is my neighbour—and he sees appeal- garbage in the alleyways. “This area used to ing to Canadians like me as an inevitable be beautiful!” she snarled. “NHL hockey mission that the Bazaar must accept. players lived here!” (Her sister told her to “People told me my store would never shut up, and bought my popcorn maker as work,” he says. But it did; despite the pres- atonement.) But most people I know are ence of the No Frills around the corner, proud to live here. And at last year’s second locals and visitors shop at B. J.’s, whether annual Festival of South Asia, on a hot, late- they want Oreo cookies or fried moong dal. August weekend, I spotted two relaxed- He points to Rang Home Decor—a new looking cops standing on a corner munch- shop run by Trish Mahtani, the business

SEPTEMBER 2005 TORONTO LIFE 33 Neighbourhoods school–educated daughter of the BIA presi- of the businesses in the centre of the strip dent—which combines South Asian style are owned by the Sikhs and Hindus who ar- with Western design ideas and has lately rived here first, and only they chip into the been featured in tony magazines. I may not BIA pot. In the past five years, the unofficial be interested in buying a sari or a carrom Gerrard India Bazaar has spread to the board on Gerrard, but the elaborately em- point where it almost spans the nine blocks broidered and beaded cushions and fabric from Greenwood to Coxwell. As it happens, at Rang pull me in as much as the restau- the expansion on the west end comprises rants do. mostly Muslim-owned enterprises, which “As the population grows and our second don’t pay the BIA levy but still reap the ben- generation rises,” B. J. says, “whether we efits. (Some say that the area would be bet- like it or not, the mainstream is going to be ter named .) our main customer. Look at the U.K. Curry But ultimately, discord takes a back seat is the number one seller there; it used to be to the desire for peace and economic pros- fish and chips in a newspaper.” perity. Last fall, Diwali, the Hindu festival of Does the Bazaar exert any pull on that sec- lights, and Eid, the Islamic feast day that ond generation? Devjani Raha is a 34-year- marks the end of Ramadan, happened to old filmmaker whose parents came from coincide roughly on the same November Calcutta and brought her up in Mississauga. weekend. The BIA took advantage of the “When we were younger,” she says, “we went coincidence and held a joint Diwali-Eid to the Bazaar every Sunday. Mississauga was festival. When they realized that Muslims so white—my parents needed a dose of their would still be fasting until after dark, they own kind. I hated it; it was boring. I was moved the kickoff party on the Friday from more comfortable with peanut butter and 2 p.m. to 7. Levis and hamburgers.” But now that she’s The Saturday evening of Diwali-Eid was older, Raha and her friends find they need a clear and crisp, and Diane and I strolled regular Gerrard nostalgia fix. “There are down the crowded street with some of her these Hindu religious comics you can only visiting family, taking in the (to us) Christ- get there that remind me of my childhood,” masy lights, the noise and the music. Exu- she explains. berant young men in traditional dress The sheer multitude of South Asian cul- drove a little too fast along Gerrard, beeping tures represented on the strip is unusual. their horns at one another. There was a real Here you can eat South Indian dosa or bhel sense of joy in the air. I couldn’t tell the puri from the north, buy halal meat from Muslims from the non-Muslims; some of a Pakistani butcher or bangles from a Sri the shops carried greeting cards for both Lankan–owned clothing store. To my Diwali and Eid on the same rack. neighbours and me, all seems calm between We had dinner at The Famous, a tiny, those whose home countries are perpetual- plain place with a tasty Punjabi buffet aimed ly aiming nuclear weapons at each other. at “Canadians.” The sole waiter amiably Are there imported tensions here, simmer- raced around serving a packed house. A lit- ing below the surface? Mohammad “Sam” tle tinsel Christmas tree and ropes of holly Saleem—a 40-year-old Pakistani immi- hung from the ceiling. I ran into my mas- grant who embodies the name of his store, sage therapist there—a multiplex link! the Friendly Supermarket—claims that There weren’t many other non–South feeding the pigeons is the only thing that Asians on the street, but we didn’t feel out Hindus and Muslims have in common. of place. We bought a package of two-foot- Pulling his bloody butcher’s apron over his long sparklers, partly for the sake of Diane’s short, round frame, he leans forward and four-year-old nephew, and partly because says he’s going to tell me the real story, even we felt happy to be there. At the library, we though some people may not like it. “Inside, solicited a light from some teenage boys; Pakistanis want to kill Hindus,” he says. Diane thanked them by saying “Happy Di- “But it’s not going to happen because there’s wali!” They looked a little stunned. “Happy rules in Canada.” Eid!” I offered instead, and they broke into The problem, it turns out, is not quite so grins. We gave sparklers to some children dramatic. The minor conflicts on the strip and made big trails of light in the air, sway- have little to do with Kashmir and every- ing with the mesmerizing song-and-dance thing to do with this piece of turf on Ger- extravaganzas of Bollywood on the big rard and who controls it. They are conduct- screen that spanned the street. ed in a polite and businesslike—in other words, truly Canadian—manner, and they ALNOOR SAYANI, an Ismaili who came to happen to break along Indian-Pakistani Toronto in 1974 from Uganda by way of the lines because of immigration patterns. Most U.K., is trying to bring the Muslim faction

SEPTEMBER 2005 TORONTO LIFE 35 Neighbourhoods into the BIA. Eight years ago, he turned an from pigeon poop. Before Alnoor Sayani old Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet into a improved the landscaping and lighting be- popular Pakistani-style eatery: Lahore Tikka hind the Lahore Tikka House and put up a House quickly burst its confines and, for security camera, cleaners regularly picked some time, consisted of a chaotic concatena- up 150 syringes a month. Directly across the tion of portable trailers connected to the street from him is a scene that is, in some main building by plywood walkways, ways, as foreign to me as it is to him. awnings and outdoor picnic tables. Now undergoing a rebuilding from the ground “HAVE YOU HEARD about the lonesome loser?” up, the place spills out onto the sidewalk on the Little River Band blares from the Kick summer nights; squads of waiters in purple ’n’ Stab. Neither I nor my neighbourhood T-shirts, some of whom were lawyers, doc- pals ever set foot inside the place my broth- tors and aerospace engineers in their coun- er warned me about. Though it’s not much tries of birth, serve a mean butter chicken. bigger than my living room, rimmed by a Sayani is a dapper man of 50 who looks corner full of windows and a wide chunk of much younger. “This area has the potential sidewalk, it dominates life on our street. Of- to rival Greektown,” he says, and the BIA ficially called Jenny’s Place, even its regu- members think so too, which is why they lars call it The Kick. Its menu is mainly re- hired a marketing consultant to help bridge stricted to North American beer; you could the ethnic divisions on Gerrard and to pro- get a hamburger or a pickled egg if you mote the Bazaar to a wider audience (aside asked, but I don’t think anybody goes there from the Festival of South Asia and Diwali- to eat. The customers, mostly white, reside Eid, the BIA also celebrates Christmas, locally, drink abundantly and lack a num- with horse-and-wagon rides and Victorian- ber of things, such as full sets of teeth. costumed carollers on the street corners). Jenny is not around anymore. The bar is Will the locals go along with it? Most res- now run by a sweet and clean-cut couple— idents recognize that without the Bazaar Ali from Iraq and Cathy from China—who the area would be pretty dodgy, though a appear to get along just fine with their cus- few years back, when somebody suggested tomers. Occasionally, I hear about the inci- Gerrard change its name to Mahatma dents that gave the place its nickname. But Gandhi Boulevard, crude signs appeared in 10 years of waiting for my streetcar in on telephone poles, proclaiming “Gerrard front of The Kick, I’ve never witnessed any Forever!” kicking or stabbing, only a lot of staggering A recent report on the future of the Bazaar and loud exchanges. There seems to be a by Ryerson University’s planning depart- solid, if dysfunctional, sense of community ment proposed less contentious changes. there. Drinkers congregate around the door, One of its supervisors, Professor Sandeep comparing notes on their welfare case work- Kumar, says the group looked for themes ers or their Percocet prescriptions, while that would resonate with everybody. They their kids play hopscotch a couple of metres came up with Bollywood films, something away. They never bother me, and we rarely that hearkens back to the origins of the converse. Bazaar in the Naaz Theatre. They proposed If you discount the odd Muslim who slips plastering movie murals on the sides of across the street to The Kick for a forbidden buildings, installing a Bollywood walk of drink while waiting for his food to arrive at fame with stars embedded in the sidewalk Lahore Tikka House (which doesn’t serve and dressing up the 506 streetcar like an alcohol), there couldn’t be a more disparate Indian-style cycle rickshaw. set of regulars sharing an intersection. The I’m not sure I want to live in a Bollywood customers at The Kick appear to ignore the theme park. I suppose it would be nice to hijab- and pyjama-clad diners across the see the street spruced up a little, but the way in what used to be their KFC, next to a neighbourhood’s charm comes from its au- jewellery store (one of almost two dozen in thenticity, as fuzzy as that word may be. No- the space of just a few blocks) that used to body would ever have planned such a place, be their Brewer’s Retail. The disregard is re- but in many ways, it works. There isn’t a turned politely. Mostly, the two groups play shred of intentional irony (though there’s their parts in the weird science fiction that plenty of the natural kind), nor a hint of cool is urban life, in which clumps of us exist in as far as the eye can see. Starbucks? Not a parallel dimensions, each occupying the chance. It’s the classic gentrification trade- same territory but seemingly oblivious to off: when we “clean up” an older, urban dis- one another. trict, we kill some of its appeal along with its Jane Jacobs would love The Kick and its organically grown grittiness. juxtaposition with the South Asian stores. Gerrard’s grittiness doesn’t come just Strangers, she wrote in The Death and Life of

SEPTEMBER 2005 TORONTO LIFE 37 Neighbourhoods

Great American Cities, can live together safe- ly and prosperously by creating a delicate civic dance that doesn’t bring them too close together nor force them too far apart. Still, I was curious enough to exceed the bound- aries of that delicate dance. Since I’d been to Lahore Tikka House, I decided it was time to cross the street. Inside The Kick, I sat down for a beer with a guy named Sid, whose son, I later realized, shovels my snow for small change—another multiplex connection! Then I was drawn to Herbie, who looked a bit like a cheerier version of Pete Townshend, with a long face and kind, black-ringed eyes. Originally from Gambo, Newfoundland, he’d been in Toronto since 1963 and was just get- ting ready to retire from an aluminum extru- sion company. “It’s just this little town, you know,” said Herbie in a chesty, smoke-cured rumble. “The people from India or Pakistan or Sri Lanka—they’re all beautiful people, you know, they’re all friendly.” “Mommy, can I have six dollars?” shout- ed a little girl from somewhere near the bar door. I glanced across to the Lahore Tikka House and realized that the sense of family I’d detected when I first moved here didn’t flow only from the South Asian tourists. But this is not a little town, and I’ve learned to live with that. Along with the sense of comfort and security that dense, multiplex networks can bestow, they also breed conformity and suspicion of outside influences. They ensure that everybody in little towns thinks the same, talks the same, looks the same and acts the same. Which is why I left the place where I grew up. Maybe that’s why Herbie left Gambo, too. Herbie turned his lined face toward me and blew away some smoke. “Anyways, lit- tle lady,” he said, “this is a beautiful commu- nity. Clashes? No, no, no, my darling. That’s an old thing. Being prejudiced is a passé thing, you know. It’s not in today.” The only people Herbie hates, he said, are socialists. We may not be pals, Herbie and I, or Sam, or B. J. “A neighbourhood is not the primary venue of social blending,” wrote Ryerson’s Sandeep Kumar and his colleague Moham- mad Qadeer in The Ontario Planning Journal. “One’s interactions with neighbours may not advance beyond the level of polite nod- ding, except in times of emergencies and collective actions.” In that nod, there is both distance and connection. There’s tolerance, too, though that’s clearly not enough. But maybe there’s also the potential for respect, if not friendli- ness. It’s the Toronto way. In a neighbour- hood where we are all tourists, at least we have that in common. E

38 TORONTO LIFE SEPTEMBER 2005