By our reporter
BRAMPTON: Having become a successful lawyer in Brampton and then the president of the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce, Murarilal Thapliyal is set to play a new innings in federal politics.
The prominent Indo-Canadian lawyer seeking Conservative nomination from Brampton West. The man who once contested elections in Mumbai is very sure of winning the nomination.
His new innings is the culmination of a long journey that began in the Garhwal hills of Uttarakhand in India where he was born in the 1960s and where walked 26 km to college and back everyday.
En route to success, this man has lived a very eventful life.
A self-made man, he got himself LLM and MA degrees in Mumbai while working night shifts for 12 long years. On the side, he also dabbled in trade union politics, did dramas and played league soccer.
Starting his law practice in the Bombay High Court, he also joined politics to rub shoulders with the stalwarts of Indian politics such as then Indian defence minister George Fernandez and Railway Minister Nitish Kumar, and contest the 1995 assembly elections from Malad in Mumbai.
In fact, Murarilal was on the verge of being nominated to India’s Upper House – called the Rajya Sabha – by the Samata Party when he decided to emigrate to Canada in 2003.
“If I had stayed in India, I would either be a top political leader or dead,” he laughs, referring to physical attacks on him by his political rivals in Mumbai.
When he landed in Canada with his wife and two sons, Murarilal started his life from scratch.
He did odd jobs to survive and then earned Canadian credentials to restart his legal career by launching his Thapliyal Law Office in 2007.
Working from 5 am to till midnight, he quickly built his law firm into a known name in the GTA.
Having tasted success in politics in India, he relaunched his political career in Canada by joining the Conservative Party of Canada under Stephen Harper and contested the federal elections from Brampton West in 2019.
Indeed, Murarilal packs experiences of many lifetimes in his journey from the remote hills of the Himalayas to Canada via Mumbai.
When you meet this Brampton lawyer, he comes across as an easy-going man. But beneath the surface he is a very driven man.
“I never sleep more than four hours, just like Prime Minister Modi or Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown. I am wired like that. I was born that way,” he says, sitting in his office at the crossing of Steeles Ave East and Torbram in Brampton.
As he sets about changiing things at the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce, Murarilal lays out his plans for this premier business organization in the India-Canada corridor and his long-term goals in this interview with Canadian Bazaar.
Q: At the helm of the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce, what were your plans for this oldest Indian business organzation in Canada?
I focussed on six areas.
My first priority was to increase individual and corporate membership across Canada. We laid out our vision before these people and sought their support.
Our second priority was to open province-wise chapters. We opened our Alberta chapter. The Quebec chapter will be opened in September. Then we will focus on Manitoba, British Columbia and Saskatchewan. We want to become the largest Indo-Canadian non-profit.
Our priority number three was to hold start-up events in coordination with India because it has the largest start-up eco-system now. These events aimed to help business people launch their operations in each other’s country.
Our fourth prority was to promote goverment-to-government liaison at the local, provincial and federal levels by holding round-tables with ministers, politicians and policymakers.
We signed city-to-city MoUs to promote trade and cultural exchanges. This year, Brampton will sign an MoU with Mumbai.
Fifth, we planned communitywide events with mayors and police forces to create an awareness among people about various issues and problems.
The sixth area of our focus was Indian students and their problems. Rampant ignorance among Indian students about Canadian laws is costing them and the Indo-Canadian community heavily.
We wanted Canada to get an undertaking from Indian students and their parents when they fill up admission forms that they have read basic Canadian laws and that they know the consequences of their violation.
Q: You have built a huge law business in a short period after coming to Canada. How did Thapliyal & Rai Law Firm become a known name quickly?
When I started my law firm in 2007, the first six months were so bad that I found it hard even to feed my family or pay my mortgage. But things changed quickly in 2008.
Q: How?
In 2008, the government introduced a regulation making it mandatory for limo drivers to submit an affidavit signed by a lawyer. While other lawyers charged a lot of money from these drivers, I decided to charge a reasonable amount from them.
So I got a flood of limo drivers at my office. I would open my office at 5 am and sometimes work till 2 am. We would open even on Saturdays and Sunday. We worked like crazy and made tons of money in 2008 and 2009.
Q: So that was the the turning point for your law firm?
Yes, that was the take-off point for my legal business. I became known in the community as a reasonable lawyer and those limo drivers got me lots of referral work.
So much so that within one year, we went from one clerk to seven clerks in my law firm.
Q: When did Murarilal Law Firm become Thapliyal & Rai Law Firm?
It happened in 2009 when Prashant Rai joined as my partner. With him, we expanded into other areas of law services.
As of today, we have four lawyers and 16 other staff.
Q: What is the motto of your law firm?
Our tagline is: All services under one roof.
At our law firm, we follow these four principles very strictly: honesty, integrity, reliability and accountability. And we are a truly multicultural law firm as we have clients from all communities and we speak many languages.
Q: You must have been the first person from Uttarakhand to become a lawyer in Ontario, aren’t you?
Yes, I was the first person from Uttarakhand to become a lawyer in Ontario.
Q: Before you came to Canada, you were a law professor, practising lawyer in Mumbai and friends with George Fernandes and Nitish Kumar, right?
Yes, I had practised law for nine years in Mumbai and was a law professor at Thakur College of Science and Commerce when I came to Canada in 2003.
I was also a known trade union leader who independently contested the 1995 Maharashtra assembly elections from Malad in Mumbai. Then I became friends with George Fernandes and Nitish Kumar who got me into their Samata Party in the late 1990s.
In fact, there was a proposal by the Samata Party to nominate me to the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of Parliament) in 2004, but I decided to leave for Canada in 2003.
Q: Why did you leave India when you were doing well?
We had two little sons and my wife said we should leave India for the betterment of our future.
We thought of going to either Canada or New Zealand. But our Canadian PR came in 2003 and we landed in Toronto on October 30 of that year.
Q: How were the early days in Canada?
We were 46 families from Mumbai that came to Canada almost at the same time. Out of these, 15-16 families stayed in Malton. We bonded well and jumped into cultural and social activities together.
We supported one another and later started whatsapp group called Sukh Dukh Ke Saathi. Today we are known as Team Thapliyal.
Q: What did you do to survive in Canada?
I was very depressed, but there was no choice.
I was back to factories and worked night shifts as an mechanic operator at Magna. After six months, I joined Eaton Limited as a spray painter. My wife got a chef’s job at the airport.
While doing these jobs, I also did my NCA to qualifiy as a lawyer in 2007.
Q: Then you set up your law firm.
Yes, immediately after getting my law credentials I started my law firm on June 18, 2007. I never worked under any lawyer in Canada.
In 2009, Prashant Rai, whom I had met at Osgoode, joined me as a partner and we changed the name of our business to Thapliyal & Rai Law Firm.
Q: Going back to your roots, you said you were born in a remote village in the Garhwal hills and walked 26 km every day for your secondary education.
I was born in the remote village of Thonkhand in Tehri Garhwal. After my matric, I walked 26 km in the mountains each day to get my inter-college education at Government Inter-College in Ghumetidhar.
Then I went to Delhi for my college education. But because of the Delhi heat, I left the city for Mumbai in 1983.
Q: You are a hardy person who worked night shifts for 12 years and slept just for four hours to earn your livelihood as well as BA, LLB and LLM degrees in Mumbai.
Yes, on reaching Mumbai in 1983, I started working as a waiter/barman at a hotel, then I joined a textile office before joining Mahindra and Mahindra.
After a gap of one year, I also joined Bombay University to study for my BA even as I worked full-time night shifts at Mahindra and Mahindra.
For 12 years, I worked night shifts and studied during daytime. My night duty used to start at 11 pm and end at 7 am.
Before going to college at 10 am, I also used to practice soccer for two hours at PTI Grounds. Finishing college classes at 2.30 pm, I would rest for two hours and then go for theatre rehearsals. Back from rehearsals, I would rest for one hour, take my dinner and leave for my night job. I also found time to perform in about 100 Garhwali dramas with Mumbai’s Nav Yuvak Rang Manch.
This routine continued for 12 years. During this period, I earned my BA, LLB, LLM and MA degrees and enrolled for my Ph.D.
During this period, I also got married to my wife Rajeshwari – whom I met at a common friend’s wedding. She was very popular in Mumbai’s Garhwali community.
Q: So you slept just for four hours every day for 12 long years as struggled in Mumbai.
Even today, I sleep for just four-five hours. It became my pattern of sleeping while working night shifts in Mumbai.
In fact, I have been sleeping for about four hours since my childhood. It worried my mother so much that she took me to a doctor. He told her that just kid one in a million is born with this sleeping pattern and she must not worry.
Q: You have pursued politics in Canada as well when you contested the federal election in 2019. How did you enter politics in this country?
I was impresssed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s handling of the country and joined the Conservative Party in 2013. I was elected chair of the fund-raising committee for Brampton Centre by former minister Bal Gosal. I also helped many ministers in the 2015 federal election campaign.
When the 2019 federal elections came, the party asked me to seek nomination from Brampton West which I got but lost the election due to the Liberal wave.
I am seeking Conservative nomination from Brampton West for the 2025 elections.
Q: You are a hard worker, but do you think you have also been lucky?
I have been lucky in the sense that I have had the experience of so many fields – politics, law, trade unionism, soccer, theatre and acting in a documentary. These experiences have given me a well-rounded view of life.
I have been lucky also because I married a woman who have always stood by me through thick and thin. She has supported me whatever I have wanted to do in life.
Q: Any hobbies?
Listening to Garhwali music and playing soccer and cricket. I also promote cricket through UK Warriors which I founded in 2011 and which plays cricket in Brampton League.
In 2016, I was elected president of the Canadian School of Cricket to train children from 3 to 19 years.
Q: Your heroes.
Stephen Harper, Narendra Modi, Amitabh Bachchan and Munshi Premchand.
Murarilal is a man of charity
As Murarilal has succeeded in Canada beyond his dreams, he has made it a point to always share his good fortune with others.
“My mother Anusuya, who passed away in Dehradun in April 2020, drilled one thing into me very early in my life. She said: `If you see someone hungry or in need, always share half of your bread with them. Never let anybody go hungry or suffer.’ Her words have stayed with me and I have always been part of some welfare charities,” says Murarilal.
In 2019, he set up his Thapliyal Foundation Canada to support sick kids, raise funds for cancer research and help vulnerable people such as seniors and the homeless.
“We raise funds and donate these to the Sick Kids Foundation in Toronto,” he says.
His foundation also supports Cancer Warriors – which is a group of about 200 breast cancer survivors – because he is a cancer survivor himself.
“Our foundation also raises money for William Osler Hospital. Moreover, we continuously deliver food to seniors at their doorstep,” he says.
Murarilal is also associated with Sai Dham Food Bank – one of the biggest independent food banks in Canada.
During COVID, his foundation delivered 1,000 meals to the frontline workers of civic hospital brampton.
When the COVID situation became very dire in his native Uttarakhand state in India, Murarilal airlifted 50 concentration units and ensured that they reached the remotest villages in the Garhwal Himalayas.
“Despite all the odds, our volunteers in Uttarakhand delivered these units even to the last village of Managaon on the India-China border,” he says with a smile.
Apart from this, he also raises funds for the Delhi-based Sarvbhaumik Parivaar which helps deaf, blind and dumb girls from remote areas of his home state to get treatment in the Indian capital.
“It’s a Garhwali charity in Delhi and mostly doctors, nurses and teachers are its members. They bring these girls to Delhi and get them first-class medical treatment and help them get a good education,” says Murarilal.
He says he also support some organzations working for the welfare of orphaned kids.
The Brampton lawyer is also known to never charge from clients who cannot pay for some reasons or are too poor to afford a lawyer.
“I believe in good deeds. I don’t charge anything from our seniors for their life certificates and I also do pro-bono work for poor people,” he says.
Murarilal – a cancer survivor
I am a cancer survivor. It was detected when I was 19. The doctors gave me just a month’s time.
First I was admitted to a private hospital and then to Mumbai’s KEM Hospital.
I became so hopeless that I gave up, writing a letter to my mother that she must rush to Mumbai to meet me as I won’t survive beyond 30 days.
Within a month, I was reduced from a healthy 55-kg young boy to a 26-kg skeletal scary figure as I couldn’t stand on my legs.
My mother rushed to Mumbai to be by my bedside. She consoled me, saying that doctors are not gods and that I won’t die.
Thanks to the efforts of Dr Saroj Patel, I survived and my cancer was finally cured. I took me one and a half years to recover.
Six months after my recovery when I went to meet the doctor who had said that I won’t survive more than 30 days. He was surprised to see me alive.
From that day, I started believing in God. I realised that life and death are in His hands. Nothing scares me now.
I had another scare in my life in 1989 when I got multiple injuries while playing soccer. After three failed operations on my right hand, I underwent a special operation by five ortho specialists from five hospitals. A steel plate imported from Germany was planted in my hand to stabilize my condition.
Luckily, I survived that crisis too, though I took me another one and a half years to fully recover.
My elder son Vivek Kumar is a licensed paralegal and works with me. The younger Vinay Kuamr is a associate lawyer with me.
