MULTICULTURAL NATION
Seema Gupta adjusts to life in Canada after making a the decision to leave India with her husband
With roots around the world, people make choices to become Canadian
Seema Gupta says the decision to come to Canada was made almost on a whim. She was from Mumbai. Her husband, Raj, was from Delhi. They were having a hard time deciding between the two, so when a friend applying to immigrate to Canada on a professional visa kept encouraging them join him, they did. “Why not?” she recalls from her home in Waterloo, Ont. She remembers how her husband attended a seminar aimed at attracting professionals to the foreign land, where the brochures emphasized multiculturalism, health care, gorgeous landscapes and yes, even the colder climate as the big draws.
“What they didn’t highlight in those seminars was how difficult it is for people to get a job,” Gupta says.
She and their baby daughter stayed behind while Raj, an engineer in technology sales, gained Canadian experience working at a big box electronics store and a call centre before finally landing a job in his field after nearly a year.
Gupta remembers how isolated she felt as a young mother living in their basement apartment in a quiet, residential neighbourhood in the Scarborough area of Toronto nearly two decades ago, missing the noise and closeness that had come with being surrounded by a large extended family back home.
She says she loves Canada now, but regrets they were never able to visit family in India as often as they wanted to.
She feels the distance more acutely as her parents get older and she cannot be there when needed. And while she thinks the wintertime is beautiful to look at through the window, she has never gotten used to the cold.
“I used to enjoy ice cream. I don’t anymore,” she says with a chuckle.