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Daily Mirror- 3rd DecemberOne may ask where else than Sri Lanka would one feel at home across the seas. Some may say Melbourne, another may say Los Angeles. But, I am sure many would say Toronto in Canada. This is not my home though, and I am here to serve my country. For me home is home not somewhere else. However, many Sri Lankans have made Toronto their home. Though many talk only of Toronto it is the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) where many Sri Lankans live. Mississauga is one place (that is where the International airport is situated), then there is Brampton, Oakville, Hamilton, London Ontario and Windsor where Sri Lankans live and roam. There is more but I cannot mention all cities in GTA here. Brampton and Mississauga are the closest cities to Toronto and many Sri Lankans have begun to move towards these areas due to the congestion in Toronto. Don’t think that I have forgotten Scarborough. It is a part of Toronto so it is Toronto too. Things have changed, people have moved and even Buddhist temples have come up in Brampton and Mississauga apart from the Toronto Mahaviharaya in Scarborough. Then there are number of Hindu kovils, mosques and churches where Sri Lankans go to pray and worship. All these places are active and are rallying places for Sri Lankans living in Toronto. Yes. There is everything here. From string hoppers, koththu, hoppers, malu buns, cream crackers, to lunumiris, pittu, MD jams, watalappan, ulundu wade, kiribath, sweet rice to geta bera to what not. Yes. There are two-legged Tigers too, facing extinction in Sri Lanka soon. All the temples conduct Daham Pasals here. There is great religious harmony and I say it with happiness because the Mississauga Buddhist Temple conducts its Daham Pasal at a Christian Church due to lack of space at the temple. Hope others would learn from it. Then there are language classes, drama and art classes, newspapers, television programmes all Sri Lankan.
Hopper Man and Tea However, I have requested the many Sri Lankans I meet, and the organisers of such events to integrate more, reach out to other Canadians to share our rich culture and hermitage as proud Sri Lankans. Canadians like to see new things and experience different things in life and rich cultures like ours. Sri Lanka got a lot to offer. Eddie the Sri Lankan Hopper Man has been making hoppers here in Toronto for more than 15 years. He is a big hit among Sri Lankans and Canadians who taste his hoppers. At a function I hosted and several Canadians wanted hopper parcels to be taken home to share with their families. There was another instance where the Deputy British Consul General tasted two Sri Lankan omelettes and wanted ‘haalmesso theldala’ wrapped to be taken home and of course many others too got the courage to follow him thereafter. The Mexican Consul General, Austrian and the Pakistani Consul Generals and their families for the very first time saw Buddhist monks at the Wesak celebrations at the residence. They still speak about it and were so pleased to see Buddhist monks chanting pirith. When we invited Canadians and dignitaries from other countries to have a taste of the best Sri Lankan tea, they all enjoyed. They still talk about it. The German Consul General’s wife cannot get over the taste of our teas and she has succeeded in a way to change her husband to a part time tea drinker. A Hungarian teacher told me how the Sri Lankan tea helped her when she was sick. She is ever so thankful
Proud of you Chelva That is why I say we Sri Lankans have so much to offer to the world be it in Toronto or anywhere else. We need to be proud of what we have and take it to the world. Islanders are fun and easy-going people. But, we should not have the island mentality. These are pieces of life in Toronto. There is more to come. But, let me end by telling you about someone I am very proud of here. Do you know that the Professor of English and the Director of South Asian Studies at the University of Toronto is a Sri Lankan? Yes. Professor Chelva Kanaganayakam is a product of Trinity College Kandy and a very unassuming Sri Lankan who makes the world richer with language and his ways. (Bandula Jayasekara is the Consul General for Sri Lanka in Toronto. He aims to build bridges between Sri Lanka and Greater Toronto Area and give Canada a real taste of Lanka. Views expressed here are his personal views) History of TorontoSet on the north shore of Lake Ontario, Toronto was created on March 6, 1834, when the settlement of York was renamed Toronto, the Mohawk word for "meeting place." The British settlement of York was founded as the capital of the new province of Upper Canada by Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe in the 1790s and had grown to 10,000 people by the 1830s. Toronto is still the capital of the province, now called Ontario, and is the largest city in Canada, with a population of 2.4 million, 4.7 million in the Greater Toronto Area. One of the most multicultural cities in the world, Toronto is home to more than 80 ethnic groups and more than 100 languages, and is marked by the diversity of distinct neighbourhoods, cultures and communities. Yonge Street, known as the longest street in the world, is the main north-south road and divides the city into east and west. Major intersections include: Bloor/Yonge, King/Bay, Yonge/Dundas, Yonge/Eglinton, Yonge/Sheppard, Queen/Spadina, Broadview/Danforth. Main east-west avenues include Eglinton Avenue, Lawrence Avenue, Steeles Avenue, Wilson Road, and Bloor Street-Danforth Avenue. Distinct neighbourhoods include Little Italy (west of College/Bathurst), Queen Street West (a soho-style strip east of Spadina Avenue), the Entertainment district (bounded by Front and King Streets, University and Spadina Avenues), the fashion district (Spadina and King), Greektown on Danforth Avenue, Little India (Gerrard Street East), and three Chinatowns.
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Toronto Diary 