Valley Gardens and Harkamal Saggi

Harkamal Saggi: I have just spent a fascinating two hours with this month neighbour on profile, Harkamal Saggi, and his charming family wife Lovely and daughters, Manveer,16; Sanveer, 15; and son P.K., 10. I d expressed a wish to talk to someone from the Gurdwara the Sikh house of worship on McLeod Avenue and, lo and behold, my daughter, was able to arrange a meeting for me. Mr. Saggi, the secretary of the Gurdwara, graciously invited my daughter Karen, her friend Navroot Kaur and me, to his Valley Gardens home, where we were greeted with a warm welcome. Mr. Saggi, a very genial sort of man, was very happy to chat with me about life as an immigrant from India. He began by telling me that he chose to come to Canada. He was born and raised in Hoshiarpur, Punjab, India and had a good job with the Indian railroad for five years. However, the political climate in Indian was volatile, the streets were not safe and there was widespread corruption to contend with, which is why he left the country. He says, people are still emigrating for the same reasons. For his first year in Canada, he had some difficulties, particularly with the language. He was fluent in English but the different accents, idioms and slang made it hard to hold a conversation. Within six months, though, he began to get a grip on the language as we speak it. Mr. Saggi had a couple of jobs, one with Palliser Furniture, but he decided to follow his ambition and become an industrial engineer. He enrolled at the University of Manitoba in 1993 and completed a five-year course in four years, gaining a degree in industrial engineering. He then went on to obtain a certificate in quality management and now works for Motor Coach Industries. Over a welcome cup of Indian tea delightfully brought in on a tray by P.K. , Mr. Saggi filled me in on his other commitments. Besides being secretary at the Gurdwara, he manages his own seasonal taxation business, and he the Winnipeg editor of an Indian paper called Des Pardes Times. He the treasurer of Valley Gardens Community Centre, where he also involved with many sports. He is also a director of Sher-E- Punjab sports club, which doesn t have its own facility, and thus plays soccer, volleyball, basketball and a well-known Indian sport called kabaddi, a sort of tag game, at Valley Gardens. All three Saggi children play for the Phoenix Soccer Club, and the girls recently played in Scotland. His wife, Lovely, has worked for the Royal Bank for 20 years. They still have family in India and have gone back for visits but Mr. Saggi said, "This is my home now, I m so comfortable living in Winnipeg, and it feels so good to be Canadian". , according to Winnipeg Free Press and Harkamal Saggi is active in many community, cultural and sporting organizations. Photo Store Joan Douglas is a community correspondent for East Kildonan. Could you be our next neighbour profiled? Contact Joan at jdoug1@shaw.ca (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.