Sunny Kakar was in the sixth grade when Raj Malhotra walked into his Kameyosek School classroom in Mill Woods for the first time. They were both South Asian, first-generation Canadians, and they learned they were also distant cousins with matching extroverted personalities that thrived on parties and strong social bonds.
They formed a friendship that spanned running for student council together in junior high, socializing with large circles in high school and organizing Bhangra dance parties, with hundreds in attendance, when they were students at the University of Alberta.
“That’s honestly the roots of where we’ve come from to get here,” says Kakar, who is now the senior manager, upstream risk of ATB Financial. Through management roles there, Kakar connected people, particularly through a South Asian team member network. It turned out Malhotra was doing similar work with Servus Credit Union and later the real estate world. But the friends noticed that there was a general loss of personal connection in the South Asian community, and many industries were operating in silos, particularly post-COVID.
“We thought. ‘How can we be a catalyst for people to renew those connections?’ ” Kakar says. “We were doing that work already for specific institutions, so we thought, ‘Why not connect people on a larger level and bring everyone to the table?’ ”
In 2021, they started the Sifarish Network, a Canada-wide group created by the South Asian professional community to benefit the community at large. The word, sifarish, has Hindi/Urdu roots and means a “referral” or “recommendation.” Kakar likens it to being a “community concierge,” he says. “We can point you in any direction and provide help.”
The friends started in October 2021 with a PowerPoint presentation explaining their vision to about 10 friends in Kakar’s basement. They registered as a non-profit in January 2022 and have since grown to about 500 local members and 1,000 national members.
Kakar and Malhotra recently travelled to Toronto for a Sifarish event about harnessing AI for career and business growth. It’s just one of a dizzying array of community building opportunities organized by the network, including: peer-to-peer networking events, leadership activities, winter festivals, helping seniors, estate planning sessions and marketplaces for budding entrepreneurs. Another goal is to welcome and integrate newcomers.
The idea behind the Sifarish Network is rooted in seva, a concept central to Sikhism that translates to service and giving back to a community, selflessly. “That’s been ingrained in my life since I was born,” says Malhotra. “I think when you give back, it comes back fivefold. It could come back as fulfilment, or spiritual enrichment or — if you’re stuck in a situation — someone helps you out. If you give, you get.”
Both Kakar and Malhotra say they’ve experienced those benefits, including thousands of gained connections across the country. And the success stories are the best part. “There are people who tell us, ‘If Sifarish wasn’t here, our business wouldn’t be around,’” Malhotra says. “When we hear those stories, we feel good, and it gives us motivation to help more people.”
This article appears in the April 2026 issue of Edify
