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WAS FIRST INTRODUCED to Toronto’s “vomit comet” over a decade ago. The moniker refers to the city’s Blue Night buses that offer late-night (usually after last call) rides from downtown heading to North York, Scarborough or Etobicoke. The 320 Yonge bus is the best-known option and is most closely tied to the nickname. For me and some of my friends it was a backup in case we missed our planned ride home. The trip north amongst fellow carousers would ease my feeling of malaise as it took me from King up to Sheppard. While Toronto’s partying scene is just as diverse as any other part of life here, it didn’t take me long to notice that I wasn’t just surrounded by fellow revellers. The bus is also the only way home from the late shift. “My shift always ended very late. Usually at 2 a.m. after we cleaned the restaurant. I would take the bus back to Scarborough and it would be filled with other Sri Lankans who worked in the industry,” says Kokulan “Kobe” Saravanapavananthan. He’s one of the many Sri Lankan chefs who have been quietly shaping the Toronto food scene. For chefs like Saravanapavananthan, the bus served as both transportation and a social network, but not to meet jovial club-goers. Saravanapavananthan is the sous chef at O&B’s Jump restaurant in the Financial District. Jump is a New York-style bistro with sky-high ceilings and a menu that covers French and Italian. Saravanapavananthan joined the restaurant in 1999 as a dishwasher. Born in 1978 in Jaffna, a peninsula on Sri Lanka’s northern tip, Saravanapavananthan’s earliest memories revolve around his family’s farm. In a tropical savanna climate, they were surrounded by rice paddies, coconut and palmyra palm plantations. Then, in the early 1980s, everything changed. “Because of the civil war between the →
MANY SRI LANKAN TAMILS RODE THE BUS EVERY NIGHT 54
