A humble, soft-spoken, kind gentleman with a lot of wisdom and experience! That is the impression one carries when talking to Mr. Inder Sharma, a very successful entrepreneur settled in Mississauga. Inder has always been a supporter of arts, hospitals, poor citizens, religion and many other worthy causes. AIM for SEVA is honored that Inder had decided to donate a hostel in 2014 in loving memory of his late wife Mrs. Prabha Sharma who passed away in 2000.
Inder’s early career in Bombay (now Mumbai) spanned 1952 to 1957 when he was the Production Executive of a movie company. He went to the UK for studies between 1957 and 1960. In 1960, he mar-ried Prabha, the daughter of well-known filmdirector Kedar Sharma. The young couple lived in London, UK, between 1960 and 1967 during which they had a son, Kamal, and a daughter, Deepika.
Inder immigrated with his young family to Canada in 1967 to establish his own business in Montreal that eventually went on to become a leading busi-ness, the Indeka Group.
It is a reflection of Inde’s entrepreneurial aptitude that, well before the large multinationals thought about it, Inder’s company, in mid 1970s, introduced the paradigm of outsourcing, by first getting manufactured material from the UK and other European companies and later the company went on to tap the efficiencies in manufactuing from the Orient, chiefly Korea, Japan and Chinafrom among 13 countries from all over the world. Today, the Indeka Group is Canada’s largest importer and brand marketer of upscale shoes, with a 137,000 square feet distribution center in Oakville and officesin Montreal and Vancouver.
Over more than a decade, Inder has made significant contributions to various charities such asToronto Inner City Children groups and the Trillium Hospital, including a major donation to the hospital in 2012.
Prabha and Inder’s support to the Vishnu Mandir saw them join Dr. Doobay in the first diggingof what eventually became the beautiful temple that established a first footprint of a Greenfield HindTemple in Canada.
Later, Inder went on to donate the Balaji Mandir within the Vishnu Mandir com-plex.Inder explains that Prabha’s wish was to edu-cate the poor, underprivileged children of India to uplift their families socially and economically. She felt that donat ing to this cause would have the most impact in terms of how far money can go to improve the livelihood of our global village.
Being close to AIM’s Mrs. Nimmi Papneja, Prabha witnessed first-hand the good work of AIM and, more importantly, that the volunteering model of AIM ensured that all the donated monies went to the desired end goal. Inder considers his donation of a hostel to AIM as only the beginning; he says that, with “Bhagwan ki krupa”, he wants to expand on it by working on a school complex, possibly a clinic, and much more!
Inder is now happily married to Rupi who is a great source of encouragement in fulfilling hischaritable endeavours. One great intangible benefit of Inde’s kindness and attitude is the tremendous encouragement it has given to the AIM volunteers!