By Sebastian Kanally, Times Chronicle

Karanjot Singh was one of four people that perished in the fatal bus crash on BC’s Hwy. 97C also known as the Okanagan Connector on Christmas Eve. 

Singh was 41, lived in Oliver, and was a chef at Masala Bistro Restaurant at Kismet Winery. He is being remembered as a family man and beloved colleague who made the workplace more joyful. 

Haward Collince, his manager at the restaurant, spoke with the Times Chronicle: “We lost somebody, like a whole body part is lost.” He continued that it has been difficult thinking of going back to the kitchen without him. 

“It will haunt us for many years, you know, it’s not like someone who just came and left, his memory will be with us.”

The restaurant at Kismet Winery is closed for the holidays, but will be open again in January.

“I am going to miss his smile . . . the way he greets everybody, the way he makes everyone happy.”

“When you build a team, you wait for that person . . . He was ready to connect everybody together . . . it’s like we are family, we smile, we laugh.”

Collince said Singh really liked cooking. He was a driver and studied in Australia before coming to Canada, but he always talked about how he loved cooking and wanted to get better. 

The bus, belonging to Alberta bus company Ebus, was traveling from Kelowna to Vancouver on Christmas Eve and flipped over in hazardous road conditions about 7 p.m. between Kelowna and Merritt, killing four on the spot and sending dozens to hospital. 

Interior Health said in a statement Sunday that 52 people were sent to hospital –  22 to Kelowna’s hospital, six to Penticton and 13 to Merritt’s hospital – of which 36 patients required medical treatment. As of Monday, Dec. 26 seven passengers remained hospitalized but do not have life threatening injuries.

The RCMP say the cause of the crash is still being investigated, but many are critical of why the road was being driven on in such conditions. No other vehicle was involved in the accident.

Singh had arrived in BC four months earlier on a work permit and was days away from taking his english exam which is a requirement to apply for permanent residency. Singh would have had to take this exam outside of the South Okanagan because there are no IELTS facilities here. 

“We don’t have an IELTS program here in the South Okanagan,” Collince said. “We don’t have the facility here, I don’t know why we don’t have a centre here locally.”

Singh was taking the bus to visit his cousin in Surrey for the holidays. He was happy to be here in Canada and was planning on bringing his family here and providing them with a better life. 

There has been a GoFundMe page set up to help with funeral costs and his family which has raised $27,800 already as of Wednesday afternoon

Singh leaves behind his mother, wife, son (six), and daughter (three) in Amritsar in India’s Punjab region.