I’m going to the Toronto International Film Festival this week. I’ve been attending TIFF since 2023 simply because I love movies. I love the experience of sitting in a theatre, discovering a film I know nothing about and seeing stories from different parts of the world come to life on a screen.
For me, that means more than attending one of the biggest film festivals in the world. It brings me back to a question I’ve been carrying since I first started trying to find my place in Canadian journalism: where are our stories?
I don’t mean stories where a Sikh appears in the background. I don’t mean the occasional Sikh character whose entire purpose is to explain their turban, religion or culture to everyone else. And I certainly don’t mean that Sikh stories only become interesting to mainstream audiences when they can be connected to terrorism, extremism, Khalistan or controversy. I mean our human stories: our families, our grandparents, our migration, our faith, our identity, our struggles, our successes, our contradictions and our dreams.
And I think about that question because I’ve spent a large part of my career trying to answer it myself.
MY JOURNEY INTO JOURNALISM
My relationship with journalism started long before I had a journalism degree or knew exactly where my career would take me. In 2019, I had the opportunity to job-shadow Pooja Handa and Gurdeep Ahluwalia at CP24. I remember walking into that newsroom and seeing the machinery behind the stories Canadians were consuming every day. It was exciting, but I was also paying attention to who was in the room, who was telling the stories and whose perspectives were being represented.
That experience stayed with me. I went on to study journalism at Toronto Metropolitan University, where I learned reporting, television, documentary, radio, photography and multimedia storytelling. I worked with The Bramptonist, contributed to Baaz News, worked with CTV News and Yahoo, and continued building my own work. Through those experiences, I realized that having diverse people in media only matters if they have the opportunity to tell stories that go beyond the usual narratives attached to their communities.
WHY I CREATED SIKH JOURNALIST
That realization was part of why I created Sikh Journalist. I didn’t want to wait for somebody else to decide that Sikh stories were important enough to tell. I wanted to create a space where I could report, document and experiment with stories from a perspective I didn’t always see reflected in mainstream media.
Sikh Journalist became my attempt to build something I wished existed when I was younger. And I’ve learned that telling stories from within a community is both a privilege and a responsibility. You understand the language, references, family dynamics and why something that might seem insignificant to an outsider can mean everything to someone inside the community.
But you also have to be willing to challenge your own community. Journalism isn’t public relations. Our stories don’t need to make us look perfect. They need to be honest.
THE STORIES WE SEE AND THE STORIES WE DON’T
That is why the current moment worries me. Anti-immigrant rhetoric has become increasingly visible. Anti-South Asian hate has risen. And Sikh Canadians are increasingly talking about their own experiences with harassment, discrimination and hate.
The World Sikh Organization’s 2026 national study found that 80 per cent of surveyed Sikh Canadians believe anti-Sikh hate has increased over the past five years, while 65 per cent reported experiencing verbal harassment.
Those numbers should force us to think seriously about the stories we are telling and the stories we aren’t. When a community becomes the subject of increasing suspicion and hostility, who gets to tell its story matters.
If the only time people hear about Sikhs is when we’re connected to political controversy, a hate crime, terrorism allegations, foreign interference or immigration debates, eventually that becomes the frame through which people see us. Those stories can absolutely deserve coverage. As a journalist, I believe in investigating difficult subjects, asking uncomfortable questions and holding communities accountable. But controversy cannot become our identity.
SIKHS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN REBELS
And this is where I think about our history. Sikh history is filled with people who challenged power, stood up against injustice and refused to accept that something was right simply because those in power said it was. We proudly tell stories about our ancestors as rebels.
But sometimes I wonder whether we have become too comfortable when it comes to telling our own stories. If Sikhs have always been rebellious enough to challenge power, why aren’t we being rebellious enough with our storytelling?
Why aren’t we writing the films, producing the documentaries, financing independent filmmakers and building production companies? Why aren’t we pitching our stories to the biggest broadcasters and streaming platforms? Why aren’t we creating work that allows people to encounter Sikh lives outside of the headlines?
Maybe rebellion today doesn’t always look like standing on a battlefield. Maybe rebellion can look like picking up a camera. Writing a screenplay about our grandparents. Documenting the history of a gurdwara before the people who built it are gone. Creating a film about a Sikh family that has absolutely nothing to do with politics. Telling a story so powerful that someone who knows nothing about Sikhs finishes watching it and understands us a little better.
WHY TIFF MAKES ME THINK ABOUT THIS
That is why being at TIFF this week feels significant to me. I’m going there as a journalist and storyteller, but also as someone who has spent years asking what it would take for more of our stories to reach spaces like this.
I want to see Sikh writers, directors, producers, actors, journalists, photographers and executives creating work at every level of the industry. Not as a diversity checkbox or because Sikh culture is suddenly trending, but because Sikh stories are Canadian stories. And Canadian stories are part of the world’s stories.
WE HAVE COME A LONG WAY, BUT WE ARE NOT THERE
I don’t want this reflection to erase the progress that has been made. I’ve watched more Sikhs enter journalism, politics, entertainment, business and the arts. I’ve watched Sikh creators build platforms of their own, and I’ve been fortunate enough to contribute to that progress myself.
But we need more than individual success stories. We need an ecosystem — people who can tell stories, fund them, distribute them, edit them and make decisions about what gets made.
The next Sikh kid growing up in Brampton shouldn’t have to wonder whether there is a place for them in journalism, film or media. They should be able to see a path, pick up a camera or notebook, and know that their perspective has value.
I DON’T WANT TO WAIT ANYMORE
Maybe that’s the biggest lesson my own career has taught me. I could have waited for somebody else to create the platform I wanted. Instead, I created Sikh Journalist. I could have waited for someone else to tell the stories I thought mattered. Instead, I picked up a camera, opened a notebook and started telling them myself.
I’m still figuring it out. I’m still learning. I’m still trying to get into rooms where I don’t always feel like I belong. But I’ve realized that sometimes the point isn’t waiting until someone invites you in.
Sometimes you have to build the door yourself.
And I think that’s where our community needs to go next. Not simply asking, “Why aren’t you telling our stories?” but asking ourselves, “What are we doing to make sure our stories get told?”
SO, WHERE ARE OUR STORIES?
I’m still asking that question. But I don’t think I’m asking it in the same way I was when I first stepped into that CP24 newsroom in 2019. Back then, I was looking around wondering where people like me were. Today, I’m looking around and thinking about what I can build.
That’s what Sikh Journalist has always been about for me. Not simply being a Sikh in journalism. Being a Sikh journalist who tells stories.
As I walk into TIFF this week, I’ll be thinking about the stories I haven’t seen yet, the films that haven’t been made, the documentaries that haven’t been commissioned, the filmmakers who haven’t been discovered and the stories sitting inside our communities waiting for someone to ask the right question.
We’ve come a long way. But if our history has taught us anything, it is that we were never meant to simply wait for permission.
So let’s be rebellious enough to tell our stories.