22.5.2015, 3 0.m. Vancouver, Canada
Had lunch in a restaurant called ' Nando's '. It is one of a chain of about 1000 such restaurants of the same name in the world, serving Portuguese African food of Mozambique. specializing in flame grilled peri peri chicken.
The restaurant is in a huge shopping centre and mall called Park Royal in West Vancouver, spread over about 92,000 sq.m. land, and owned by an Ismaili. Ismailis are one of the richest communities in Canada and elsewhere.
The owner of the restaurant is also an Ismaili. He was in the restaurant when I came there with my relatives, and was wearing the same black dress worn by the other attendants ( his employees ).
I started talking to him in Hindustani. He asked me whether I liked the food ? I said that the chicken was one of the most delicious I had tasted in my life.
I asked him where he was from ? He said he was from Karachi. He then told me of the massacre of 43 Ismailis in Karachi recently ( on 13th May, 2015 ), some of whom were known to him. He was almost crying when he started speaking of the incident
Ismailis are a small sect of Shias, comprising of just a few hundred thousand, and headed by the Agha Khan. They do not go to regular mosques but to 'jamaatkhanas'. They are a peaceful trading community, and yet they are being slaughtered in Pakistan, he said, simply because they were Shias.
