Move On Up

I moved to Toronto, Canada on September 25th, 2021. Here are my insights from my life in Canada so far. Basically a pros and cons list about the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).

Pros

• Food
  • Food in Canada has been mostly incredible in Toronto. There’s so much variety when you’re eating out.
  • Anyone who knows me knows I LOVE eating out. Indian food has been hit or miss but I’ve eaten some incredible Thai food, Syrian/Damascene food, incredible Caribbean food, flavorful dumplings.
  • I even managed to find a frankie in Toronto. Nothing compared to the Churchgate station Tibbs frankie (the Mumbai OG) but decent considering we’re on the other side of the world.
• The people
  • People have been mostly friendly and willing to talk. Very rare for large metroplexes I’ve lived in beyond Mumbai.
  • Again, anyone who knows me I love a good conversation. So far, people have been generally talkative. Scroll down to the Post Scriptum (PS) for my tips to talk to strangers.
• The outdoors
  • Toronto has a lot of outdoorsy things to do. As someone who dislikes going to the gym, exercise outdoors is my source of happiness.
  • There’s a huge selection of stuff that’s available, depending on the weather. It’s snowed to hell? Go sledding. It’s warm? Go biking around Toronto or swimming in Lake Ontario.
• Public transport
  • Public transport is well-designed till the last mile in Toronto (not Mississauga). Just be careful of buses over the weekend.
  • My comments come from a lifetime of traveling on public transport. My dependence and love for public transport is well known.
  • You can literally take public transport only till Niagara Falls, ON. Quite a distance from the GTA.

Cons

• Expensive
  • It is CRAZY how expensive Toronto is. Real estate is in huge demand but low supply for housing that makes sense at the price.
  • Maybe my skewed view comes from having lived in a state like Texas where real estate is generally affordable.
• Poor salaries
  • Pay in the GTA and Canada in general is pretty garbage. Inflation as high as it is right now will hit super hard here.
  • It is unrealistic how low the pay is with how high living costs are. Not just rent; groceries, eating out, everything is crazy expensive.
  • Having talked to an Irishman from Dublin and knowing the crazy real estate in Mumbai and NYC, is all real estate skyrocketing?
• Inept immigration
  • Like all governments, the Canadian government seems incredibly inept.
  • Maybe it’s just stuff related to immigration? My Permanent Resident card got lost in the mail. No way to track it. No way to check how the renewal process is going.
  • On the other hand, my tax refund was processed super quick, as was my Ontario Health Insurance card and my Ontario Photo Card.

I know I’ve dropped some tantalizing tidbits in this short blog post. What is Damascene food? General food questions? Would LOVE to recommend some food. Hit me up in the comments.

P.S: My friends are always shocked at how easily I can talk to any random person on the street. The trick is to find something common between you and the other person. Then let them talk. And always value what the person is saying, interjecting with something relevant when needed.

This is another shameless plug for anyone who needs help with navigating the immigration system to come to Canada. Please ping me; I try to help for free.

Another piece of advice: Jobs are aplenty in IT. Any other industry is a struggle. If you are coming to study, study IT. Literally everyone coming here is studying business or marketing.

People Everywhere

Remember Orkut days? Remember those days where we used to compete to see who had the most friends? Granted, we weren’t even adults yet. Remember those days when everyone had a landline? Remember when we had to write down phone numbers in a phonebook?

I didn’t get a cell phone till I was 18 (this was 2008). How was keeping in touch so much easier back then? I probably had a literal handful of friends, so life was easier?

Social media was quite new then so hardly anyone was on it. Honestly, I don’t even remember how I kept in touch with people before social media.

I have lived in 3 cities (one of those on the other side of the world), met a LOT of people, and had the pleasure to have befriended quite a few of them. Are they really friends though? My friend Ethan used to say this about me: “Shri has a lot of acquaintances, not friends.” Maybe he’s right? Keeping in touch with people has always been difficult for me. So I open this question up to you.

How do you keep in touch with all your friends? It’s a serious question.

When you live in the same city as your friends, it’s easy to meet them in person. How do you do that when all your friends are scattered over the world? And I’m not even talking about acquaintances.

My parents (especially my Mom) have done admirably at keeping in touch with so many of their friends and family. She calls each of her 4 sisters (my aunts) quite regularly and is still in touch with her college friends AND school friends. I always admire my parents for their ability to compartmentalize their life. I have struggled with that. An easy way to cop out of this is the fact that most friends of theirs are based in India.

Video calling during COVID times seems to be the best way out. But that’s not my jam. I’d rather meet people in person.

I try to wish everyone I know on their birthdays. It leads me down a rabbit hole sometimes since I have some very specific memories with some friends.

Facebook has been excellent at reminding me of people’s birthdays. If I have their phone numbers, I wish them through WhatsApp. Americans, please try to use some messaging app because I cannot SMS/text you. Also, I have actively been trying to reduce my Facebook usage so I’ve started saving friends’ birthdays on Google Calendar.

Maybe I’m just a person who doesn’t have a lot of close friends? Maybe that’s a cop-out? Maybe my friend Ethan was right. Maybe I am one of those people who has a lot of acquaintances but not friends?

That’s not to say I don’t have friends at all. My school friends are still some of my closest friends. Since we’ve spent quite a bit of our childhood together, it’s easy to just meet them without keeping in constant touch. I also have close friends from my two attempts at graduation. I think the Indian education system helps you make friends for life because of how much time you spend with the same few people. Of course, you also need to keep in touch after that because life has a way of making people drift apart.

WhatsApp has definitely helped keep in touch with some friends purely because some groups tend to be active. I apologize if I haven’t been as good about keeping in touch as I hoped to be.

Having said that, I want to talk to all y’all, so please respond to this blog post? Or ping me on Insta or Facebook Messenger. Hell, LinkedIn works in a pinch.

I love you all. I hope to see you when COVID eases out. I miss all of you.

Is That Enough

I am back with another post! Since I quit my job in preparation for my now-indefinitely-delayed move to Canada, I have not written, either for business or pleasure.* For a writer, that is bad. Getting back to writing after a long break is difficult if not impossible.

This talk about writing was for me to segue into talking about writing during our childhood and why I think about this now.

I was an avid reader through my life, right up until the mid 20s. I developed a love for writing when I was studying for engineering entrance exams. *Shameless plug for my early blog posts here*

But some of my most vivid memories of writing are from school. I clearly remember the times we had to write autobiographies of inanimate objects. I always used to wonder what a dish rag would feel like when I used it on multiple dishes. What a trash can/dustbin feels like when it’s overflowing with trash. It was always difficult to write about autobiographies of inanimate objects because as a thirteen year-old, you barely think about life. Who has empathy as a 13 year old? What do you know about life at 13? I had seen my grandmother pass away when I was 8 but as a kid, life is just too exciting to ponder too much about someone’s passing.

I was always a half-decent writer so I always did well at writing in school. I just wonder about what I would write given those topics now. I feel like I would do well considering I am more empathetic now than I was at any point in my life before.

As I sat down to coat prawns in rice flour and semolina to be pan-fried later, I wondered about the life of those prawns. I coated about 15-20 prawns and I thought about what they went through to feed us.

I think quite a lot about what animals have to go through to feed us. The meat industry is not kind to animals and I can see why they can’t afford to be either. Earth has a massive, unsustainable populations of humans at the moment. And I know most people will balk at the concept of not eating meat. I am there with all of you.

I love meat. Since I have a uric acid problem, I cannot eat much red meat but I love eating chicken, seafood, and turkey. But I know I need to cut down on my meat consumption eventually, for my health and for the environment. It’s a good thing I live in India; this country has some of the best vegetarian food in the world.

My most recent experiment is with trying to cut down on alcohol consumption (not that I had a lot to begin with) and reduce consumption of added sugar to a bare minimum. I’ve been doing remarkably on both fronts; something that has surprised me is my willpower at controlling my sugar intake. I never thought it possible but here I am, about a fortnight into my experiment. And I’m doing well, the occasional sugar cravings notwithstanding. My next experiment is going to be with deep-fried foods, something that might be infinitely harder. I’m hoping this has a positive impact on my physical health, something I need now that I’m 30.

Okay, I’m guilty of having flitted between multiple topics here but I also remember that used to be my writing style. I hope y’all stick around for my next PSA, haha.

I’m thinking of leaving songs here that I’m obsessed with at the time of writing this blog. Give them a listen, if you want.

*I started this post in December but only managed to finish it now. I realize I have written a few posts (private or otherwise) since then.

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Finding Fanny Fernandez

Rating: 4 / 5

I’m not a person who regularly goes and watches movies produced by anyone remotely related to Bollywood. But since Being Cyrus (and Cocktail being a momentary blip), I have the utmost respect for Homi Adajania. And Finding Fanny is a ray of sunshine in this dark time (according to me), for Hindi cinema. Even though I watched the English version, it is still a Bollywood movie.

Though I would like to clarify that it is not like any other Bollywood movie I’ve ever seen. It is beautiful, funny in ways that Bollywood directors would not understand and sensible enough to realize the flow of the movie. Finding Fanny is a movie about, well, finding Fanny. Better known as Stefanie Fernandez. The quirky journey, which brings out aspects of all the characters, covers almost the full movie. The ensemble cast is phenomenal with the older actors doing brilliantly to outshine Padukone and Kapoor.

A warning to anyone who enjoys the kind of humour Bollywood churns out. This movie is not for you. Watch it if you want, but don’t curse because you don’t understand it. For one thing, fans of Bollywood will feel when the Interval arrives just 45-50 minutes into the movie. The film drifts along at its own pace, headed without much direction, but with every visual meant to please your eyes. Padukone looks stunning throughout the movie, Gareebon Ka Wolverine (thanks AIB) looks rakish, as he is supposed to. The funniest part of the movie is the cat’s storyline, which might be the only redeeming factor for most people. But the fact that Adajania has made Finding Fanny look as beautiful as, say, the ridiculously expensive Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara at less than half that film’s budget is credible. Goa, even without the beaches, has never looked more stunning.

Having said that, Finding Fanny is not even half as quirky as Adajania’s directorial debut, Being Cyrus. It is still a fun watch, maybe a one-time watch for most people. But I promise you, you will leave the cinema hall with a smile on your face. This review contains absolutely nothing that will spoil your first watch of the movie. But please, do not miss Finding Fanny and Adajania’s quirky look at life in rural Goa.

P.S. How did I ever forget the soundtrack? It is beautiful beyond comparison. Such a breath of fresh air to not see people dancing around on screen and tons of background dancers assisting them. Inspite of the absence of typical Bollywood music, this movie is stunning. Go figure.