by Manjit Handa

What is it that makes some people stand apart, evokes our respect and makes them extraordinary amidst the crowd of ordinary people?

It is the attitude they have towards life and the way they spend the hours, days, weeks and years of life; the assiduousness with which they work and most of all the “selflessness” that becomes them. We had the pleasure of talking to one such woman. Name: Mohini Singh. Age: Around 43 years. Occupation: Reporter for The Okanagan’s Very own CHBC. Her selfless contribution to the society: Tremendous. All this, in spite of the fact that she continuously battles with MS (Multiple Sclerosis) for the last four years.

Mohini was around twenty two when she emigrated from India to Canada in the year 1983 with her mother and sister. Her father had passed on by then. With Bachelors in History from St. Stephens College in Delhi, Mohini along with her family had to face a lot of “challenges”. Although language was “not a barrier” it was all about “adjustment” and attunement to the new society and a “whole new way of living” which she feels “takes years”. She received her Broadcast Journalism Diploma from British Columbia Institute of Technology and started working in radio for eight months before moving onto television. She has ever since been working in Radio and TV in both Vancouver and Okanagan. She asserts that she finds her job “challenging” and “exciting” especially going “out in the field” and “meeting new people everyday”.

Life was smooth until she was diagnosed with MS about four years back. She vividly remembers that she had gone to Lake Louise with her husband on a skiing trip a few months after their marriage and she could not ski down the slope suddenly and “couldn’t see anything”. When she visited her doctor she was told that she had the disease. For a “high energy” person who represented the basket ball team of the College, it certainly is a “sad” feeling. But Mohini faces and overcomes this situation everyday by “staying positive”, having a “healthy diet” and “getting lots of sleep”. She has made up her mind “not to have children” of her own lest something goes wrong during the pregnancy. While earlier she used to go for walks in the evenings, now she is “aware of her limits” and keeps her energy stored for her job, community work and family. She strongly believes that “half the battle is won in your head.

Although Mohini used to take few hobby classes earlier, it was after she got MS, that she seriously started thinking about her hobbies, one of which is clay art. When she cannot go for walks, she goes to her art work studio down in the basement of her house which her husband has built and designed especially for her. Working on her plaques and bowls of clay “calm her down” and give her an “inner peace”. If each of her pieces of clay art sells not below $125(Can), she also happily donates a lot of these models. Drawn particularly to Indian Art she uses images described and shown in the Kamasutra (Visit her website).

A peek into Mohini’s resume leaves no doubt about her selfless extraordinary endeavors. Be it promoting a “Run against Racism”, supporting the Central Okanagan Visible Women’s Society to get women employment in Canada, helping the Women’s Shelter in Kelowna and Penticton especially in crisis situation, assisting police in situations where language becomes a barrier, both in Kelowna and Penticton or helping immigrants from Bosnia, Rwanda and India settle into life in the Okanagan Valley, Mohini has been in the forefront of community service. She was rightly chosen the most suitable candidate By Canwest Global for the 2004 Community Spirit Award for Volunteer work.

She considers her mother to be a strong inspiring force who she thinks has always been a very “strong lady” taking two jobs at a time as a nurse to support her family. It has been more than twenty years ever since Mohini moved to a prosperous Canada but she has not forgotten the “poverty” that handicaps India and thinks that one should never “forget to turn back” and help at least “one person a family” lest you fail “as a person”. Sometime in Fall next year Mohini is planning to go to India with her husband to “adopt a child”. Mohini’s Irish husband Finbar O’Sullivan needs a special mention here who has always been supportive of her work and remains by her side battling through MS. Mohini thinks that “wherever you come from in the world you have to be proud of who you are and what your culture is because a tree cannot grow without roots. . . .I strongly feel about my Indian past and the Canadian reality”.

She catches up with all the activities she likes to do in her holiday time like hiking and canoe trips. As if all she does is not enough if given a chance to relive her life, she would like to be a “risk taker”. Keep up the good work Mohini.

Her message to the readers:
“If you set your mind on something there is nothing you cannot do and live life with complete passion”.

Should not we all be a part of the relay Mohini has started and be of some help somewhere in our community and NOT BE FAILURES AS HUMAN BEINGS?

Come let’s take the baton!