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After shifting to Ottawa to show highschool arithmetic within the late Sixties, Inderjit Handa, a vegetarian, was totally appalled by town’s collection of pure meals.
Handa had been born and raised in India, and taught faculty in London, England, the place a minimum of he may discover some respectable muesli. Ottawa was a well being meals wasteland. So, in 1974 whereas nonetheless a trainer at Canterbury Excessive College, he based Handa Pure Meals on the Billings Bridge Buying Centre.
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It was one among Ottawa’s first well being meals shops.
“My concept was actually to supply folks with a substitute for grocery store pre-packaged meals,” Handa as soon as advised an interviewer.
The shop flourished and, inside two years, he launched a second location on Financial institution Road within the Glebe, alongside a journey enterprise, Handa Journey. He give up his instructing job the next yr to dedicate himself to entrepreneurship. By 2000, Handa Journey had greater than 30 places in Ontario and Quebec, and 150 workers, a lot of them new immigrants.
A pioneering member of Ottawa’s Indo-Canadian enterprise neighborhood, Handa died all of the sudden from cardiac arrest earlier this yr whereas visiting India. He was 85.
“He was curious and , and he listened to everybody,” mentioned Handa’s son, Alex. “He was infinitely wanting to connect with folks, perceive them, and know their tales.”
His personal story had an epic high quality.
Inderjit Handa was born into a big, affluent Hindu household in Mandiala Tega, a predominantly Muslim village about 100 kilometres north of Lahore, in January 1937. His father and grandfather labored as grain and cotton retailers in a village the place Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs lived side-by-side.
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However Handa’s life was perpetually modified in 1947 by the top of the British Raj, and the partition of the sub continent into two states: Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.
British civil servant Cyril Radcliffe, a person who had by no means been to India, drew up borders between the 2 international locations, and about 15 million folks travelled, typically lots of of kilometres, to resettle amongst their fellow spiritual adherents. Many had been pushed out with violence.
Handa and his household had been among the many legions of refugees. The household deserted their villa and most of their possessions, left behind some gold with a trusted Muslim barber (they might reclaim a few of it a few years later), and walked for 10 days in the direction of India. They evaded mobs alongside the way in which that attacked the refugees and their encampments.
Historians estimate a million folks had been killed throughout partition.
Handa would later inform his kids he knew the scent of burning flesh. “He solely within the later a part of his life began speaking about that interval,” mentioned Alex Handa. “I feel he bottled up loads of trauma.”
Residing with kin in India, Handa resumed his education and ultimately graduated college with levels in arithmetic and historical past. He went to work on the Punjab Nationwide Financial institution in Delhi, however one other tragedy quickly set his life on a brand new course.
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His older brother, Kewal, 27, died all of the sudden from a mind hemorrhage as he ready to check in England. Struggling to maneuver previous his grief, Handa determined to make use of his brother’s visa and airplane ticket, and journey in his place.
It was the center of the “Swingin’ Sixties,” and London was quick shedding its conservatism in favour of a extra permissive, cosmopolitan fashion. Handa embraced the brand new freedoms, and took a job as a math trainer in Notting Hill, then an immigrant neighbourhood.
One night, whereas attending a dance organized by the British Council, he met a Swiss lady, Erna Knutti, a Montessori trainer who was within the nation working as an au pair. They might spend the subsequent 60 years collectively and lift three kids.
In 1969, Handa accepted a instructing place in the USA. En route, he stopped to go to some cousins in Ottawa, members of the Dilawri household, who owned a automobile dealership. On the dealership, Handa advised one of many salesmen, Pat Butler, about his plan to maneuver to Ohio.
Butler suggested towards it, and advised him he may simply discover a instructing job in Ottawa. He opened up the newspaper, discovered a labeled advert for a place at Canterbury Excessive College, dialled the principal, and arrange an interview for Handa.
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He was employed the subsequent day.
Handa taught at Canterbury for the subsequent eight years — till his increasing enterprise empire demanded his full consideration.
His well being meals store and vegetarian café within the Glebe had prospered, and the small journey desk he began behind the shop was additionally doing regular enterprise. The Handas travelled regularly, usually buying and selling notes and ideas with different lecturers, and wished to make the most of what they noticed as a rising market.
When the Eighties recession hit, Handa determined to get out of the well being meals enterprise and focus on the journey trade. He employed many new Canadians into his Handa Journey places of work, and commenced to supply excursions to India, a lot of which he led himself. His complete household usually accompanied him.
The enterprise grew to greater than $100 million in annual revenues, however Handa was compelled to retrench following the 9/11 terror assaults and the next trade slowdown.
His father confronted racism each as a businessman and due to his mixed-race marriage, Alex Handa mentioned, however he at all times maintained it was vastly outweighed by the acceptance he loved in Canada.
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“He by no means even stopped to say, ‘That’s racism,’ or ‘That’s not honest.’ He by no means slowed down due to it. He by no means took it personally,” Alex mentioned. “He at all times advised us, ‘It’s simply ignorance: They don’t know the meals of India; they don’t know the tradition of India.’”
Handa was nonetheless working part-time at Handa Journey when he died. Alex and his sister, Tanja, now plan to get re-involved within the enterprise.
“It feels the correct factor to do,” Alex mentioned.
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