In 1993, the Punjabi Market featured the first Punjabi street signs beyond Asia. Photo Source: Pabla Family
Gulzar Nanda has a deep and enduring love for the Punjabi Market. The area, located on Main Street, from roughly East 48th to East 51st Avenue, represents the historical heart of Vancouver’s South Asian community. Nanda’s parents immigrated to Canada from India, and opened Hi-Class Jewellers in the neighbourhood in 1989. During his lunchtime break from school, Nanda would run down with his friends to the Punjabi Market, buying chips and candy from Punjab Food Centre, owned by Harinder Toor. Because many of his friends also had parents who owned businesses in the area, they quickly established camaraderie. “The Punjabi Market was like a playground for us. We’d come after school to our parents’ shops, and we’d hang out together while our parents worked,” he says.
Nanda, now co-manager of his family’s jewelry shop, is on a mission to rejuvenate this important neighbourhood through his work as chair of the Punjabi Market Regeneration Collective (PMRC).
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Explore South Asian Heritage and Public Art at the Revitalized Punjabi Market
