At 23, Harman Boparai had it all planned out.
He would spend the fall finishing his final semester at Mount Royal University, where he was studying business.
From there, he would bring his skills and training to bear on his family’s grocery and liquor stores, where he’d usher in “new ideas, new marketing techniques, more expansions,” said his uncle, Sukhjinder Boparai.
“He always said, ‘you guys are disorganized,’ ” Sukhjinder recalled. “He had very good plans for the life that he lost.”
Harman was at a friend’s apartment in the 1900 block of 25A Street S.W. on Friday night when he fell to his death in what the medical examiner called an accident.
The last time his friends saw him, he was alone on the sixth-floor balcony.
Then he was gone.
Earlier that night, Harman had finished a shift working behind the register at a family-owned liquor store in southeast Calgary. According to his uncle, he went to a friend’s house before the two headed out for a walk along the Bow River, and then to the apartment in Killarney.
After Harman vanished from the balcony, his friends heard people screaming below. Then they rushed to the edge and looked down.
“The police ruled out any foul play; they said it was a freak accident,” Sukhjinder said.
Police were called to the apartment complex before 11 p.m. after witnesses reported seeing a man fall off a balcony. Paramedics found a man in his early 20s dead at the scene.
The death was ruled accidental, though police said they were still investigating what led to the fall.
Leddie Boparai, Harman’s father, was trying to make sense of it all as he prepared to make funeral arrangements for his eldest of two boys. He said Harman made friends with everyone and was enormously generous, especially with his compassion.
“If you met him for 20 minutes, he’d be your friend,” his father said. “He was kind to everybody, no matter who it was.”
Harman and his younger brother Ajap were the first generation of their family to be born in Canada; their family moved to the city from India in 1981.
“He was vibrant, smiley, young, very handsome,” Sukhjinder said. “If anyone asked him to do anything, he would.”
