AT the Polo Park Mall in Winnipeg, a Punjabi girl in her twenties greeted us warmly at a retail showroom. The moment she learned that my wife belonged to Ludhiana, her face lit up. With a spontaneous smile, she began calling us uncle and aunty, stepping instantly from the role of a salesperson into that of a niece.
Soon, conversation overtook commerce. She had come to Canada on a study visa and was pursuing a diploma in massage therapy while working part-time. My wife’s motherly warmth seemed to touch a hidden ache within her, and the loneliness she had been carrying quietly spilled out. Her eyes moistened and her voice trembled as she spoke of the endless struggle, mounting expenses and how deeply she missed her parents. We tried to comfort her and even offered financial help, which she politely declined. When we finally left, she appeared emotionally lighter, but we walked away carrying the weight of her silent suffering.
I had a similar diasporic encounter at the Calgary airport, where a North Indian girl was serving customers at a coffee counter. On learning that I belonged to Jagadhri, her eyes brightened instantly. Excitedly, she asked if I knew Kheda village, her native place. By chance, I mentioned a few acquaintances whom she recognised as relatives. For a moment, the thousands of miles separating Canada from India simply dissolved.
But as I left the counter, she hesitantly called me back. “Please don’t tell anyone back home about my job,” she said softly. There was far more sorrow in her eyes than in her words. Her sense of self-humiliation haunted me long after my flight landed.
These girls are not isolated cases. Across Canada, countless Indian students juggle gruelling academic schedules with exhausting shifts at retail stores, cafés, warehouses and gas stations just to survive. Back home, many of them belong to comfortable, middle-class families where they never had to lift a finger. Abroad, they find themselves trapped in the exhausting cycle of soaring rents, economic strain and social isolation.
The dream of “settling abroad” continues to dazzle our society. Yet, the glossy promises made by unscrupulous immigration agents often mask the harsher realities of immigrant life — cramped basement accommodation, subtle discrimination and the quiet anguish of navigating an alien environment alone.
Certainly, many young people eventually triumph through sheer grit and perseverance. But for every success story celebrated on social media, there is a vast, silent saga of endurance unfolding behind counters, inside kitchens and in lonely rented rooms.
As parents, perhaps it is time we looked beyond the deceptive glamour of foreign shores. Before we send our children into such uncertain, unforgiving conditions, we must ask ourselves if we are guiding them toward a brighter future, or merely chasing the mirage of Maple dreams.
The writer is a retired associate professor based in Jagadhri (Yamunanagar)