From Toronto to CNN, he’s all business | TheStar

http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/631901

‘I hated me on TV,’ Ali Velshi says of his early days on CFTO. No one shares his opinion now

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The Velshis belong to the Ismaili branch of Islam, led by the Aga Khan. Their forebears are from Gujarat state in India, though Murad and Mila, Ali’s mother, grew up in South Africa. Ali’s great-grandfather was a friend of Gandhi, who arrived in South Africa in 1893; his grandfather was a student in a Gandhi-organized school; and an uncle took part in passive-resistance anti-apartheid actions.

As apartheid became more oppressive, Velshi’s parents were forced to sell their bakery, which had been in the family for four decades, and in 1960 they moved to Nairobi, where Ali was born. When he was a year old, they visited Pakistan, England and New York City, looking for a new home, finally settling their young family – which included Ali’s elder sister, Ishrath, now an Ottawa mother – in Canada. “The comfort factor was here,” says Murad, now 74.

The elder Velshis still occupy the North Toronto house where they raised their children. Murad and Mila ran a chain of travel agencies. Ali was a bright, sociable boy who became student-council president at Northern Secondary – he liked politicking and people.

Later at Queen’s University, where he studied religion, he was involved in student government. In between studies, he worked part-time in clothing stores – including Harry Rosen and Stollery’s – and though he has a reputation as a dandy, he says he liked selling more than the clothes themselves.

http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/631901