The past several days were a whirlwind of galas, to the point that I somewhat lost my voice as of yesterday. On Thursday, I attended the Toronto Police Chief’s Gala. And on Friday, the Peel South Asian Collective Internal Support Network Gala—thank you to my great friend Minister Nina Tangri for inviting me. I have a lot of interest in what Peel is doing with community policing, so it was wonderful to attend. I was able to bring my good friend Officer Farhan Ali of the Toronto Police Service, who’s a champion for the Muslim community. On Saturday, I attended the Gujarati Cultural Association Diwali dinner.

I also want to extend a personal thank you to a small business owner in Cambridge, Nav, who owns Ritzi Collections. Attire for the South Asian gala was South Asian attire, and I had nothing to wear, because, of course, it requires an auntie or quantum physics to get a sari on. So at the time that the event had actually already started in Brampton, I flew into her store in Cambridge with a laundry basket full of saris and said, “Will you please put something on me?” In 45 minutes, Nav, Manjeet, Harpreet, Navdeep and Jasmeet had, in a scene reminiscent of Cinderella, whirled around me, custom-made and altered a blouse, pinned me into my sari, got me all accessorized and sent me out the door. Thank you so much for their generosity.