this story originally appeared in on may 29 2021he has never played a game of basketball in his life so scoring a point is out of question he isnt even a broadcaster or a writer yet he was inducted into the nba hall of fame last week alongside basketball legends like kobe bryant tim duncan kevin garnett chris webber and othersmeet navdeep bhatia aka superfan nav a 69yearold businessman from toronto who last week became the first fan ever to be inducted into the nba hall of fameits unbelievable its sinking in slowly bhatia who hasnt missed a single toronto raptors home game in the last 25 years tells et sportbhatia was made aware of his nba honour last year in february but he could not believe iti told him his manager not to screw around with me no dont make any jokes about it he saysbut i later found out that it was truethe enshrinement ceremony was supposed to happen in september 2020 but because of the covid19 pandemic it was postponed to 2021 the wait was agonizing as he couldnt tell anyone about his biggest achievementbut in comparison to covid19 nothing is more agonizing because thats much more important to fight against than this thing ceremony says bhatia who is proud of his sikh brethren in india for their exemplary relief work during the ongoing covid19 pandemicearly lifebhatia was born and raised in delhi he did his schooling from mothers international school near hauz khas new delhi and graduation from dav college in jalandar punjab he went to california us to study mechanical engineering and returned to india to help manage his familys businesscircumstances however changed in 1984 as the assassination of then prime minister indira gandhi triggered the antisikh riots which were the most severe in delhi and its surrounding areasit was the darkest period for any sikh in india in delhi especially a lot of sikhs were killed and there was no safe place bhatia recallsit forced bhatia to leave india and move to canada with his wifealthough he was safe life wasnt easy in canada initially despite having a mechanical engineering degree he couldnt find a stable job nobody wanted to hire a guy with a long beard and turban bhatia saysto survive he did all sorts of odd jobs from cleaning peoples homes and washrooms to landscaping eventually he settled for a car salesman job in what he calls the rough part of the townwhen he started his sales job he faced discrimination there were speed bumps you may call it discrimination but i prefer to call them speed bumps bhatia recalls the days when other employees used to mock him as underwear diaperhead and towelheadhe kept his head down and focused on his work i knew that i had to be better than good if i wanted to survive in that environment i sold 127 cars in three months and it was a record at that time and its still a record bhatia