More than 30 years ago, Harnek Sanghera watched his dream burn to ashes in the flames of the anti-Sikh riots that followed the assassination of Indira Gandhi in Delhi.
Today, the 55-year-old is anxiously hoping for redemption through his 21-year-old daughter in Canada.
In December 1984, Harnek was preparing to represent India at the Asian Weightlifting Championship in Iran when the trip was cancelled due to the riots, forcing the former five-time national champion to return to his home in Talwan village near Jalandhar.
On July 14, Harnek, who immigrated to Canada in 1989, will watch Prabdeep step into the biggest arena of her life so far — the weightlifting event at the Pan American Games in Toronto.
Prabdeep is ranked No.1 in British Columbia in the 75 kg category and made it to the national team with a highest total of 219 kg in March. She will be a part of the 13-member Canadian weightlifing team for the quadrennial event starting on Friday.
“Prabdeep has done what I could not achieve. It will be a proud moment for us when she wears the Team Canada jersey at the Pan American Games,” Harnek told The Indian Express.
“In 1984, our tour was cancelled and we had to return back in a tense atmosphere. But Prabdeep’s selection has erased all that disappointment,” he added.
It’s been a swift rise for Prabdeep. She was Canada’s only weightlifter to qualify for the Youth Olympic Games in 2010. She also lifted a silver medal in the snatch event in the Junior World Championship in Lima, Peru, and bagged another silver in the Senior Commonwealth Championships in Malaysia in 2013.
She won her first international gold medal at the Sub Youth Pan American Championship in 2006, and repeated that win in 2007.
Harnek won his last national title in Jamshedpur in 1989 where he set a national record with a lift of 189 kg in the 82.5 kg category before immigrating to Canada — Prabdeep was born in Talwan village in 1993 and Harnek’s family shifted to Canada two months after she was born.
In Canada’s Surrey, Harnek started working in tree plantations while keeping his passion for weightlifting alive, inspiring Prabdeep and her younger sister Snimerdeep to choose the sport in 2002. He is now a truck driver.
“While growing up here in Surrey, we would listen to our father’s achievements and I always wanted to try weightlifting. I started at the Lions Club in Surrey under coach Makhan Sandhu, who incidentally was my father’s coach too. My father would also spend hours training me and my sister,” said Prabdeep.
“I am excited to take part in the Pan American Games, it will be a huge moment for our family. I have trained with some of my teammates and they keep asking me about my father’s records,” she added.
Snimerdeep was a silver medallist in last year’s Youth Pan American Championships in Mexico; their mother Rajwant Kaur is a former kho kho player.
“Prabdeep representing Canada in the Pan American Games means a lot to the Indian community and the players have been very supportive,” said Sandhu, 64, the coach at Lions Club.
“I was a coach with the Punjab Sports Department from 1981 to 1983 when Harnek was our star. In 1984, when the riots happened, the boys who were in the Indian team barely managed to escape and reach their homes,” he added.
Last year, Prabdeep visited the Indian weightlifting camp at NIS, Patiala along with her father, and met top lifters such as Commonwealth Games gold medallist Shiva and silver medallist Vikar Thakur.
“I just hope they will follow my event at the Pan American Games,” said Prabdeep.
