Patrick Bhai and Stephen Bhai are old friends of Gujarat.
Patrick Brown, the Canadian Member of Parliament from Barrie, Ontario, is the unofficial guide for the Indian prime minister, who will visit three cities in two days in Canada.
The Globe and Mail reports that "Prime Minister Narendra Modi refers to Brown as "Patrick Bhai".
The prime minister departed from capital Ottawa on Wednesday evening for Toronto and Vancouver.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, another old friend of PM Modi, will also be around the Indian prime minister during most of his visit.
In fact, in a break from protocol, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Canadian counterpart on Wednesday travelled from Ottawa to Toronto on the same aircraft.
Modi does not forget old friends, especially those who stood by him during trying times.
When foreign desks in many western nations were over-punctilious about doing business with Modi's Gujarat, both Harper and Brown defied the trend.
Patrick Bhai has visited India more than 15 times, with eight trips to Gujarat.
"[Canada's] Department of Foreign Affairs told me not to go visit him," says Brown. "I went anyway. Modi said he would never forget the gesture. He said he would never forget who his friends are."
Brown has worked towards bringing Indian students to Canadian universities. He is closely in touch with the Gujarati community in Ontario.
"I sold three times the number of party memberships as my [leadership] opponents, thanks to the Gujarati community," Brown says.
"They tell me, 'We need Ontario's first Gujarati premier. There is even a website called Gujaratis for Patrick.'
His Indo-Canadian connections have propelled him to the centrestage of domestic politics. He has been re-elected four times to the Canada-India Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Group.
Of the 12 million Indo-Canadians, about 300,000 are Gujaratis.
Brown Bhai says, "Modi is going to be a rock star and will do great things. He was somebody Canada needed to cultivate a relationship with."
Brown stuck his neck out for cultivating Modi when the latter was not the national rock star that he is perceived to be now.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper's links with Gujarat also go back a long way.
Stephen Bhai had opened a trade office in 2006, at a time, when New Delhi frowned upon any foreign government interacting with Modi or Gujarat.
Harper will take no less than 16 colleagues with him to Toronto and Vancouver where Prime Minister Modi is headed after the Ottawa leg of his Canada trip.
Harper will be with Modi at the Kanishka Air India memorial, at the Diaspora event, at the Sikh Gurudwara and at the Hindu temple.
Though these are not really government-to-government events, the consummate politician that Stephen Bhai is, he knows that he could secure Indo-Canadian votes for the elections to be held in October.
The Indo-Canadian community started around the beginning of the 20th century.
The pioneers were men, mostly Sikhs from the Punjab; many were veterans of the British Army.
Most members of this community are settled in British Columbia.
According to Statistics Canada, since the late 1990s, roughly 25,000-30,000 Indians arrive each year. This is now the second-most populous cultural group immigrating to Canada each year, behind the Chinese.
The settlement pattern in the last two decades is still mainly focused around Vancouver, but other cities such as Calgary, Edmonton, and Montreal have also become settlement destinations due to growing economic prospects in these cities.
Toronto has the largest Indo-Canadian population in Canada.
Almost 51 per cent of the entire Indo-Canadian community resides in the Greater Toronto Area. Vancouver has a 20 per cent Indo-Canadian community, while Calgary has a five percent Indo-Canadian community.
Bilateral relations between India and Canada have been longstanding and built upon a mutual commitment to promote democracy, pluralism, and foster greater people-to-people links.
Relations did take a hit in the mid-1970s after India conducted a nuclear test, but since 2012, it has been looking up again with the visits of Prime Minister Stephen Harper to India and now Prime Minister Modi visiting Canada.
