What Items to bring in Canada?

Friends and relatives ask this question often before they leave India. What to bring? To me it is important question, but another question is also more important – what not to bring?

In this article I am going to put my two cents on this topic. Please note that this individual opinion and may very from person to person. So do not take anything for granted.

Clothes:
Clothes are not so expensive in Canada. You can get Jeans pant almost at the same price as in India. However not all clothes are cheap. In-fact most of the time we are getting inferior quality clothes in Canada compare to India. Jeans are good here, so it is not required to bring from India. If you prefer tailor made clothes, then you must bring it from India. Here anything required manpower is so expensive. If you buy ready-made pants but require some alteration before using it, and then also you must bring it from India, otherwise you might have to pay big dollars. (For example, to shorten one cotton pant, I paid 10 dollars). All Indian ladies items are very expensive here. You can get fair quality Punjabi suit staring from 100 dollars and it goes up to 300 dollars. Though everything is available including saris, chaniya choli, gharara, sharara etc. all are expensive. If you are fond of Navratri then you must bring good stuff as Navratri in Toronto is celebrating Navratri quite greatly, so you will have change to wear those. On top of that most of the religious functions are celebrated in temples, so you will have many chances to wear traditional clothes. Children’s clothes are not available in good quality, so you may need to bring those. However here kids might need different kind of clothes. For example frocks are not common here. You should bring good leather or heavy jackets from India. They are available here (Made in India) but quite expensive. You can also bring light jackets. In summer you need light clothes. Sports shoes are available here in great variety and with good price. You should not bring them. Leather shoes are very expensive here, so please bring couple of good pair. You may bring Hawaii Chappal from India. Leather belts are also little expensive here, so you might need to bring more belts per person from India. Good suits are required for gents at the time of interview (for office kind of jobs), but it is not compulsory. Good while shirt on any dark (non-jeans) pant is enough. If you like to bring suits, you can do so, but only one is enough. Here people wear suits on some occasions, but it is not so common.

Masalas:
You must bring enough Masalas from India. Especially Marchu (Chili Powder) is not available here in good quality. All other Masalas are available here in all varieties and with good quality, but they are quite expensive. You should bring Marchu, Haldal, Sunth, Ganthoda, Dhanajiru, Garam Masala, Dal-shak na Masala etc.

Utensils:
All the utensils we use in India can be used here, so you might not need to buy special ones. Only thing make sure that the bottom of any pan that will be used for cooking is thicker and flat, as we have electric stove here. You can bring dishes enough for your family plus couple of more. When you arrange a big party, all people use disposable dishes. Again everything is available, in case you miss anything.

Books:
You should bring books from India as far as possible, as books are very expensive here. But as books are very heavy please make sure to bring only required books.


Other Stuff:
For Kids admission to school you only need passport and vaccine records. You are not at all required to show previous school records. So please don’t rush here and there to get it. You can get admission at anytime, so it is not required to come during vacation. Just come here, next day go to school and you child will get admission.
You may need to bring good blankets from Raymond. However if they are occupying too much space, you can avoid it. Please bring bed-sheets of largest size available – here beds are very big – they call is queen-size and king-size. So get few good bed-sheets of Bombay-dying. You can also bring full size pillow cover.