Darshan Singh Anand

It is with profound sadness that the family of Darshan Singh Anand (Darji) announces his passing on June 27, 2026 in Montreal, Quebec. He was 89 years old and departed peacefully, surrounded by the family he devoted his life to.

He was born in 1937 in Gilgit, Pakistan. This was the starting point of a long journey that would end, many decades later, in the country he came to call his own: Canada. From those beginnings he carried two things that would define him for the rest of his life: a deep capacity for hard work, and an even deeper love of living.

In the 1970s, Darji made the decision that would change the course of his family's story. He took the first step of a journey his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren are walking today. He arrived in Canada with little, and he built everything. The early years were not kind; they asked for long hours, lonely shifts delivering pizza, and a patience that tested the spirit. But Darji met them the way he met everything: head-on, without complaint and with the brightest smile.

What Darji earned, he earned twice over: once for himself, and once as an example for his children. On Boulevard Saint-Laurent, under his leadership, the family built a thriving import-export business in electronics. But Darji was never content to build alone. He brought his brothers, his sons, and his nephews up alongside him, helping each of them establish enterprises of their own along the same street. His greatest gift to his children was never ease, but strength — the knowledge that perseverance outlasts hardship, that a person is only as good as their word, and that you stand back up every single time life knocks you down. That lesson lives on now in each of them, and in the lives they have built.

And yet, for all his discipline, Darji understood what many hard-working people forget: that a life is meant to be enjoyed. He loved to celebrate. He was the first to raise a glass, the smile that arrived before he did, the camera never far from his hand. His home on Place Villon in Brossard – the one he built with our matriarch, Sardarni Daljit Kaur – was the family's Vada Ghar, the big house. The doors were always open, the table was always full, and no one ever left hungry or a stranger.

His memory will be carried forward by the entire Anand and Kohli Parivaar, and by everyone fortunate enough to have shared in his warmth (and, of course, his love for Urdu poetry). His was a life lived fully — struggle met with strength, labour repaid in love, and joy shared without measure. May his spirit remain forever where it always lived: in our hearts.