
Nav Bhatia's name was immortalized over the weekend when he joined the ranks of Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and Wilt Chamberlain in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. While some make it to the HOF for their jump shot or coaching skills, Bhatia is the first to be enshrined for being a fan.
"In the greatest building basketball has, the name Superfan Nav Bhatia will be immortalized," Bhatia said in a tweet. "There is now a turban and the first fan honoured within Naismith Basketball Hall Of Fame. I am overcome with emotions today."
Bhatia bought a pair of tickets to the Toronto Raptors' first game during their inaugural season in 1995 on a whim and has attended every home game since. He's known for sitting courtside, just below one of the nets.
Rival Milwaukee Bucks power forward Giannis Antetokounmpo once called Bhatia the Raptors "most annoying fan."
But to Raptors fans, he's quite the opposite. In fact, he was awarded a championship ring after the team won the NBA Finals in 2019.
But Bhatia's fandom is about a lot more than just aggressively cheering for his team. According to his website, his goal is to "unite people of all ages and backgrounds through the game of basketball so they don't have to face the discrimination [he's] faced as a visible minority."
He came to Canada from India in 1984 to escape religious persecution. When he arrived, he had a hard time getting in a job with his mechanical engineering background because of the way he looked.
Bhatia was able to land a job as a car salesman where he excelled, eventually making his way through the ranks. Now, he now owns two of the most successful Hyundai dealerships in Canada.
In 2018, he received a Royal Bank of Canada Top 25 Canadian Immigrants Award, an honor given to those who contribute to the Canadian economy, to Canadian society, and to Canada overall.
His experiences as an immigrant led him to create the Nav Bhatia Superfan Foundation dedicated to raising money to build basketball courts and camps for kids in Canada and across the globe.
The superfan's belief in charity mirrors those of his Sikh faith, which put an emphasis on charitable giving. "A wise man said — the true measure of a man is not his intelligence or how much he amasses," Bhatia writes on his site. "No, the true measure of a man is how quickly can he respond to the needs of others and how much of himself he can give."
As a World Vision ambassador, Bhatia helped raise $200,000 to build restrooms for female students in northern India.
Changing perceptions -- from Sikh to superfan | Nav Bhatia | TEDxTorontowww.youtube.com
Bhatia's fandom is also about changing perceptions of Sikhs in Canada and abroad. "As I stand before you today, what do you see?" he asked the audience at his 2014 Ted Talk. "Someone who makes you uncomfortable on your flight? Your convenience store worker? Your gas station attendant? You see my turban and my beard."
After a man mistook him for a cab driver, he realized that he needed to do something to change the narrow perceptions of Sikhs. So he decided to do so through his love of basketball.
"I went to every game. I cheered the most. Everybody noticed this turban guy cheering on the team the loudest. Even the opposing team noticed that," he added. "All of the sudden, this turban guy became the face of the Toronto Raptors."
Bhatia's story is a wonderful example of the power that sports fandom has to bring people together across ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic divides.
"This is what basketball does—it gives us the opportunity to bring the world together," he said.
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A Generation Jones teenager poses in her room.Image via Wikmedia Commons
An office kitchen.via
An angry man eating spaghetti.via 
Gif of baby being baptized
Woman gives toddler a bath Canva


An Irish woman went to the doctor for a routine eye exam. She left with bright neon green eyes.
It's not easy seeing green.
Did she get superpowers?
Going to the eye doctor can be a hassle and a pain. It's not just the routine issues and inconveniences that come along when making a doctor appointment, but sometimes the various devices being used to check your eyes' health feel invasive and uncomfortable. But at least at the end of the appointment, most of us don't look like we're turning into The Incredible Hulk. That wasn't the case for one Irish woman.
Photographer Margerita B. Wargola was just going in for a routine eye exam at the hospital but ended up leaving with her eyes a shocking, bright neon green.
At the doctor's office, the nurse practitioner was prepping Wargola for a test with a machine that Wargola had experienced before. Before the test started, Wargola presumed the nurse had dropped some saline into her eyes, as they were feeling dry. After she blinked, everything went yellow.
Wargola and the nurse initially panicked. Neither knew what was going on as Wargola suddenly had yellow vision and radioactive-looking green eyes. After the initial shock, both realized the issue: the nurse forgot to ask Wargola to remove her contact lenses before putting contrast drops in her eyes for the exam. Wargola and the nurse quickly removed the lenses from her eyes and washed them thoroughly with saline. Fortunately, Wargola's eyes were unharmed. Unfortunately, her contacts were permanently stained and she didn't bring a spare pair.
- YouTube youtube.com
Since she has poor vision, Wargola was forced to drive herself home after the eye exam wearing the neon-green contact lenses that make her look like a member of the Green Lantern Corps. She couldn't help but laugh at her predicament and recorded a video explaining it all on social media. Since then, her video has sparked a couple Reddit threads and collected a bunch of comments on Instagram:
“But the REAL question is: do you now have X-Ray vision?”
“You can just say you're a superhero.”
“I would make a few stops on the way home just to freak some people out!”
“I would have lived it up! Grab a coffee, do grocery shopping, walk around a shopping center.”
“This one would pair well with that girl who ate something with turmeric with her invisalign on and walked around Paris smiling at people with seemingly BRIGHT YELLOW TEETH.”
“I would save those for fancy special occasions! WOW!”
“Every time I'd stop I'd turn slowly and stare at the person in the car next to me.”
“Keep them. Tell people what to do. They’ll do your bidding.”
In a follow-up Instagram video, Wargola showed her followers that she was safe at home with normal eyes, showing that the damaged contact lenses were so stained that they turned the saline solution in her contacts case into a bright Gatorade yellow. She wasn't mad at the nurse and, in fact, plans on keeping the lenses to wear on St. Patrick's Day or some other special occasion.
While no harm was done and a good laugh was had, it's still best for doctors, nurses, and patients alike to double-check and ask or tell if contact lenses are being worn before each eye test. If not, there might be more than ultra-green eyes to worry about.