Those street hockey games led Maharaj into house leagues and eventually on to York University, where he won a CIS championship, and then to Northern Europe. But after leaving the Swedish league in 1991, he retired from playing, returning to Etobicoke in hopes of furthering his education. He enrolled in teacher’s college and after graduating in the mid-1990s, he went to work as a Grade 4 teacher. A few years later he transitioned into a role in which he helped students with behavioural issues, including some with gang connections. The new position—based at Highfield Public School in Etobicoke—was more demanding but freed him from the rigidity of grade school teaching. It was fulfilling, too.

“I really enjoyed working with the [gang-affiliated students] in particular,” says Maharaj. “A lot of these guys were from some pretty harsh upbringings and yet they managed to adopt this form of loyalty that was really unbelievable—misguided as it was at times. If you could help them, learn from them and connect with them, they were loyal as pit bulls.”

Maharaj recalls one young girl he was called to work with in particular. Each day she would arrive at school with her homework untouched, causing teachers to take away recesses and replace them with after-school detentions. When Maharaj tested the girl, he found no major learning issues. Figuring there was more to the story, he dug deeper.

He asked around the neighbourhood and discovered the girl’s mother was a prostitute who often brought johns back to the apartment. The child was so afraid of these strange men she would hide in the closet, where there was no light. She wasn’t able to do her homework in the dark and often slept in that confined space.

“Had I just accepted the stubborn little girl that I was faced with, I would have completely missed the point,” Maharaj says. “It really taught me to look beneath the surface to find the answers. As old as the saying is: ‘Never judge a book by its cover.’ People do what people do for a reason.”