Family reunited after 100-year rift.
Jai Singh, right, and his nephew Suder Shan Kumar Kumar, visiting from india, relax at the Singh family home in Scarborough on Wednesday. After Singh and his wife Lita made the trip to a small village in northern India called Raikot last year, the two met for the first time, effectively ending a 100 year period in which the two sides of their family hadn't seen or spoken with each other.
Staff photo/BRAD PRITCHARD
When Jai Singh retraced his family's footsteps, he was brought back to a rustic cottage in a small village in India, where a muddy floor may have been the catalyst for a century-long lapse between his ancestors.
"When my grandfather was 13, he got into an argument with his mother after he tread over the floor she had just cleaned," he said. "My grandfather must have made a mess and gotten into a fight with his mom. They had a falling out, I guess, so he left."
Singh, 64, who has lived with his family in Scarborough for nearly 30 years, immigrated from Guyana in 1971 and had always wondered how his grandfather, Sadi Sharma, had ended up in the West Indies, but he could never find an answer - that is until recently.
"Canada is nice, but the life is very busy," said Singh's long-lost nephew, Suder Shan Kumar, as he sat smiling in the Singh's Scarborough living room this week.
Kumar, 47, is visiting from India and had met the Singh family less than one year ago, but by the way his newfound Canadian family has embraced him, you wouldn't have assumed that.
Last year, Singh and his wife, Lita, travelled to India where they were united with Kumar and the rest of his family in the village of Raikot, the birthplace of Singh's grandfather. It was a new era for the Singhs because it bridged a century-long divide between the two families.
Singh and his wife were welcomed by hundreds of relatives, who held a "royal" home-coming party for them, complete with a parade and live bands. The local media even held a press conference about their arrival.
"They accepted us whole-heartedly," he said. "They said, 'Welcome back. You're home now.'"
After making up for lost time with his relatives, Singh soon found the answers he was looking for.
It turned out Singh's grandfather abruptly left the village in the late 1890s and eventually ended up in Calcutta, where he met an English man who convinced him to work overseas in the sugar cane fields in what was then known as British Guyana.
"At the time they called it 'indentured labour,'" he said, adding that it was basically slave labour.
But before Sharma could leave the country, he had to change his last name because it was associated with higher-class individuals who at the time were confined to India. So from then on, he was known as Sadi Singh.
"That's how we got our last name," said Singh. "I've had this name my whole life and I only found out about this a couple years ago. Can you believe that?"
By the end of the century, Sharma was on his way to Guyana aboard a 300-passenger ship that made a brief stop in South Africa, where he met his wife, who ended up coming with him.
They arrived in Guyana in early 1900, where the family would settle for the next 70 years before coming to Canada. In an effort to keep in touch with his family, Sharma did write a few letters in the 1950s and '60s, but the family members back home kept them secret for unknown reasons.
But around 2006, a cousin of Singh's came forward with these letters he had hung onto over the years. After inspecting the envelopes, they revealed an address and name of someone unknown to them in a village called Raikot. These letters, a handful of dog eared papers written via typewriter, turned out to be the key to Singh's past and an invaluable family treasure.
In 2007, the family here in Toronto made a series of phone calls to officials in Raikot, where they discovered that the mayor of the village at the time, Kumar, was actually the great grandson of Singh's grandfather, Sadi Sharma. A year later, Singh's cousins made the trip to India and made first contact.
"We were amazed when we learned that they still remembered us," Singh said. "They passed down the story about a part of the family that left for Guyana."
It wouldn't be another year until Singh himself would meet his lost but not forgotten family. But when that moment finally came, he said it was very surreal.
"To be able to discover my roots was a dream come true for me and my family," he said.
Singh, who has four daughters, said this experience has renewed their interest in their family history - something of which he is very proud.
Lita said she was touched by the experience and wants to explore the history of her side of the family, too.
"I can't express into words how wonderful the whole experience was for me," she said. "It's like going back in time, walking down the same streets our family have for the past 100 years.
"We will always go back to visit, but not just for the country, but for the people."