Pakistani food tastes better in a restaurant. Well, at least for a Pakistani Canadian. It doesn’t matter if my mom makes the same dishes at home when we have family dinners. At Lahore Tikka House in Toronto, the chicken tikka sizzles louder as it comes straight out of the tandoor oven. The garlic naans smell stronger. The sweet tang of mango kulfi soothes the sharp bite of biryani. On the adult side of the table, my mom and my khala speak in quick-fire Urdu as they discuss Pakistani politics. Beside me, at the kids’ side of the table, my brother speaks in English as he shows our sister a new video game for the three of us to play together. I wonder if I can convince Abbu to buy me another mango kulfi. “It’ll help me connect back to home,” I’ll say, even though the thought of Pakistan as a home instead of a place to visit for two weeks at a time is not one I have often. But I’ll pretend for now if it’ll get me another kulfi. I’ll gladly declare “Pakistan Zindabad” while ignoring the way the words don’t quite reach my heart. I’ll act like I don’t notice the stares from Westerners when I walk down the street in my shalwar kameez. I’ll push away the fear that lingers just under the surface when I think about how I look visibly different. Most days the pride outweighs the fear. Some days it doesn’t.
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If you do the math, Pakistan is ten thousand, three hundred and eight kilometres from Toronto. It is a 12-hour flight from Toronto Pearson International Airport to Allama Iqbal International Airport (that’s at least four 2000s-era Shahrukh Khan movies). Tickets to Pakistan cost more than $1,000 per person. For the average middle-class family, that’s a lot of money that could go towards other necessities instead of a vacation. It’s why most families only make the pilgrimage back home once a decade or so. With these conditions, it’s no wonder people in the Greater Toronto Area would rather make the short commute to Little India on Gerrard Street. It’s a more cost-effective way to stay tied to their culture and interact with their community.
But why is it called Little India? After all, the Indian community are not the only ones who have a stake in the area. This transplanted Desi district is also home to Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Nepali, and Sri Lankan businesses. So, if multiple countries influence this space, why does it fall under “Little India”?
While South Asian cultures, specifically those from Pakistan and India, have a lot in common, the messy history behind the countries reminds us of why they can’t be confused with each other. When Britain’s rule over India ended in 1947, it led to the birth of Pakistan and India. The majority of Muslims migrated to the newly created Pakistan, while almost the entirety of Hindus stayed in India because both religious groups wanted to practice their faiths in peace, which could only happen if the populations were segregated. However, the transition was bloody, with atrocities committed on both sides as people desperately migrated from one nation to the other. If you look on the map, the split isn’t even down the middle; India kept most of the land of the British Raj, while only small parts were splintered off to create Pakistan. Even after the land split, and Muslims and Hindus set down roots, it didn’t stop the tension between the two nations. Wars between the countries have been waged. Hate crimes between Muslims and Hindus have been committed. Disputes over territory have led to major conflicts. These deep-rooted issues resulted in a single mindset: though similarities between the deshes arose when they existed under the British, they are now not to be interchanged with each other.
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I didn’t know that the district had a name, since we only ever called it “Gerrard Street.” The logistics didn’t matter, because we laid claim to the Pakistani territory in the area, and that was what we cared about.
The ethnic enclave is called the Gerrard India Bazaar. In the early seventies, when Canada wasn’t really the multicultural nation that it now boasts itself to be, it was hard for South Asians to find their own community. That changed when Gian Naaz, an immigrant from India, bought the old Eastwood Theatre in 1972 and began playing Indian movies there. Though it wasn’t a big hit at first, Naaz’s resilience allowed the theatre to flourish and cemented it as the start of a new centre for South Asians to feel a little more at home while simultaneously being ten thousand, three hundred and eight kilometres away from their ancestral homes.
Bazaar in English is roughly translated to a marketplace, much like the ones that exist in the countries that make up the residential area. It’s a term my mom would use often when I was growing up, and the context she would use it in would generally just mean “going out to shop.” My mom immigrated to Canada when she was eighteen after she married my father who had grown up here (I should note that marrying at such a young age is not strange — it’s very common in our culture, then and now), so while she has been here for almost her entire life, she tried to find ways to connect herself and her family to our homeland. That meant finding ways to immerse us as much as possible into our culture.
Out of all of us, my mother has made the most trips back home. When she comes back to Canada, it is with suitcases full of goodies: sweet, soft Pakistani mangoes that melt in your mouth, extravagant jewelry that looks heavy but is weightless in your ears, Pakistani-style suits for any occasion. Most of my heavy brown suits aren’t from Gerrard Street; they come stitched from the hands of a seamstress in Lahore. You can tell by the heavy weight of the kameez that the expertly woven patterns and beading are the result of actual Pakistanis, and not a hodgepodge of Westernized South Asians trying to emulate Pakistan. A suit of royal calibre would never be found in Gerrard Street for the price that she got it; the Canadian dollar is worth much more than the Pakistani rupee, so she prefers to shop in Pakistan. If she were to buy it from Gerrard Street, it would have been three times the price.
It’s sitting here, watching my mother take out boxes of detailed but delicate jewelry and bags of cute but cheaper clothes, that the disconnect between me and my culture feels the strongest. It’s strange to think that things from the culture of my ancestors can fit into a suitcase, fly halfway around the world to make it to me, and yet it doesn’t feel the same. Like the clothes from Gerrard Street, I’m authentic but not. Like the clothes from Pakistan, I’m foreign but not. People think that having the best of both worlds means having it all, but what it really means is fighting for your right to exist in both worlds while ignoring the sinking feeling that you don’t really belong anywhere.
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I have especially fond memories of Gerrard Street during Ramadan. Ramadan is the ninth month of the holy calendar in Islam. To commemorate this, Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset (and no, we can’t even drink water). Because the Islamic calendar is bound to the cycles of the moon, Ramadan begins on a different day each year, falling back about ten to twelve days. When I was in high school, Ramadan happened in the summer. With sixteen hours of sunlight during the day, the fasts were not easy. But there was one night where after the fast opened at 9:00pm, my mom, my older sister, and I piled into our car and drove up to Gerrard Street. My mom’s best friend and her two daughters joined us, and we walked along the streets of the bazaar. The light from the yellow street lamps overshadowed the glow of the moon, though during Ramadan it seemed to take on its own radiance. As if it knew this was the most important month of the lunar calendar and wanted to celebrate with us.
We stopped at Chandni Chowk every time for snacks. Crispy chaat papri with soft boiled potatoes and chickpeas bathed in mint and sweet-and-sour chutney. Cold and colourful kulfis ranging from mango to almond to pistachio. Tangy lassi, thick and creamy. We would go back to strolling the streets, enjoying the breeze, and relishing in the kind of friendship that religion creates. Then we returned home for sehri, the time where we eat to prepare for the next day of fasting. I haven’t experienced a Ramadan in Pakistan, but these nights on Gerrard Street were probably the closest I’d get to it.
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As different as they may be, it’s hard to deny certain aspects of culture are shared amongst Pakistan and India. I may be Pakistani, but I grew up exclusively watching Bollywood films. I’ve seen lehengas in both Pakistani and Indian stores. While we ignore the gol gappay and pani puri debate, the cuisine shares similar dishes. I can find a kulfi on the streets of both Lucknow and Lahore. In this way, I can see why Toronto would dub this area Gerrard India Bazaar. After all, we’ve got plenty in common.
But I wonder if the similarities are enough to outweigh the differences, especially for older generations. As a second-generation Canadian, I don’t personally see why the legacy of a historical event that occurred fifty years before I was even born should have to be continued by me. But for my family, specifically my mother, who spent her childhood and teen years being raised in a country directly involved in the conflict, I can see the complexity. My maternal grandfather was in his nineties when he passed. His passport read “British Raj” because Pakistan wasn’t even a country when he was born. My mother grew up under the military regime of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, a direct result of the unsteady state of the country following their freedom from colonization. For them, the hatred is visceral; it is felt in every inch of their bodies. It’s not something to be brushed aside or ignored just because you like Indian movies. While I can certainly enjoy the crossover between cultures, I’m sure someone like my grandfather remembered the way the metallic scent of the blood of his people burned his nostrils. I’m sure my mother remembers how the laws in Pakistan slowly moved away from being secular to being dictated by the laws of the Quran in order to establish stability in a country that has not known it. That kind of trauma fuses itself to your bones. That kind of trauma imprints the pain of your ancestors onto your soul when you’re born. That kind of trauma doesn’t allow you to accept the assumption that we exist under the same umbrella. The reality that my grandfather was older than the creation of his country reminds me that this didn’t happen that long ago. How can people who fought so hard for an independent identity just ignore the exclusion of their existence? How do they accept a title that doesn’t acknowledge the history behind it?
I guess for a country that’s the child of the one that colonized us in the first place, that didn’t matter. And maybe that’s one commonality between us we should accept.
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I’m not sure when the Gerrard Street I used to know changed. Maybe I didn’t really know it at all. The Gerrard Street that exists in my memories had flavours of only South Asian countries. It’s only recently that I’ve noticed Westernized businesses creeping up. Sanagan’s Meat Locker, a butcher shop that serves non-halal meat. Pizzeria Via Mercanti, who you think would find a better home in Little Italy. Glory Hole Doughnut shop, whose treats aren’t even common in South Asian countries.
It’s like a second colonization. In 1839 the British seized Karachi. The rest of the Sindhi region followed. Then they stole more land until there was nothing left. Is that the grim fate of the Gerrard India Bazaar? Going from being a predominantly brown community to being dominated by Western forces? South Asian businesses in Gerrard India Bazaar have had to adjust as new businesses emerged in the Greater Toronto Area and people didn’t have to go all the way to Toronto to find a taste of home. Instead of appealing solely to the burgeoning South Asian community, they changed to appeal to the Anglo-Saxon community.
You know what they say about history. Except this time, there can’t be a Partition. Not when the land this street rests on was colonized before they arrived. Perhaps that’s just the fate of the South Asian diaspora: to feel as though the Westernized parts of their souls intrude on their identities in a way that completely takes over, until they open their eyes and see the world surrounding them is just as fractured as they are.
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To me, and I’m sure to my mother’s disappointment, Pakistan is not home. I have been there a handful of times in my life. I get sick when I go there because my body can’t handle some of the food. I keep quiet in public because street vendors recognize I’m a foreigner because of my accent and will charge me extra for items. I don’t speak the language very well; when I sit in a room with relatives I haven’t spoken to in years, I can’t be a part of their conversation, and that makes me feel more isolated.
Despite that, I consider Pakistan to be a spiritual home. My body came into this world in Canada, but my soul was born from the soil my ancestors are buried in. In that sense, we are connected in a way that transcends language. I don’t need to speak Urdu to know them and how hard they fought so I could exist.
I am here because my paternal grandfather wanted a better life for his children. While I don’t take that gift for granted, I do long for the community that comes with being in a Pakistani-majority country. I want to walk around wearing shalwar kameez and not stand out for it. I want to go to fast-food restaurants and be able to eat the meat because everything is halal. I want to go to bazaars filled with people on Chaand Raat who are just as excited as I am that tomorrow will be Eid.
The Gerrard India Bazaar is the closest place I can go to experience the intimacy of community. We do last-minute jewelry shopping there. We go there for a taste of authentic food in a foreign land. We go there to find others like us. The South Asian businesses there, despite experiencing Westernized invasions, refuse to leave.
I just have to find a way to make peace with the fact that India is the only country that’s recognized in its title. Maybe I’ll start with long walks on Ramadan nights. Maybe I’ll start with asking my Abbu for another kulfi. Or maybe I’ll start by finding another way to reclaim the title. Just “Gerrard Street” may cause others to ask me where on Gerrard Street I’m talking about. But I’ll know where it is, and that’s enough for now.