It gives us great pleasure to publish this edition of the Oshwal Directory. We are indeed fortunate to be part of the Halari Visa Oshwal family. Our heritage, culture, sense of caring and sharing, and our concept of community are remarkable and each one of us should nurture, contribute to and feel proud of being part of this family.

The purpose of this Directory is to not only continue our Oshwal heritage but to provide opportunities for members to network, to socialize and to provide a convenient resource to identify other Oshwals for sharing our values. We are successful wherever we settle because we:

• Create a better understanding of our culture;
• Address the problems faced by the members collectively;
• Appreciate different ideologies;
• Provide an environment for individuals to grow; and
• Work together to learn and respect those around us.

To this end, we have an annual gathering in the east coast and these gatherings are well attended by Oshwals living in the region. We would like to encourage more regional gatherings and, if there is sufficient interest, a gathering of all Oshwals living in the USA and Canada somewhere in Central USA once every two or three years.

We have tried to include all the Oshwals that we were able to identify through their family members or friends, but we believe that there are many more Oshwals who are not included because we do not have information about them. We hope to revise and update this Directory in about two years. Our objective is to include all Oshwals living in the USA. Therefore, we request you to provide the family profile form included in this Directory to any Oshwal who would like to be included. Also, to keep the Directory up-to-date, please note any changes on the form and mail it to Surya and Satish Shah of Plano, Texas.

Young Oshwals are encouraged to use the information in this directory to develop their own network of Oshwal friends. If there is sufficient interest, additional information on Oshwals studying in colleges and universities, particularly the details of their studies, could be included in the next directory.

Please note that the information in the Directory is for the sole use by the members of the Halari Visa Oshwal community and should not be used for any commercial purposes.

Acknowledgments

It has been a long time and all of you have waited patiently.  We hope it was worth waiting. Without your cooperation, it would not have been possible to gather the data and publish it in a form of a Directory.

I would like to thank Mr. Manu Shah of Hanover, MD for his continuous support and push for the project.  We must thank  Mr. Satish Shah of Plano, TX who spent a lot time and effort to identify members missed during my search and the latest updates on the changes in family status. The initial database was a Lotus spreadsheet.  It was converted into an Access database by Manu Shah.  The database restructuring and populating the database was also done by Manu.  Rajesh Shah of Carrollton, TX did the final design of the database and Satish Shah did the final editing of the data.  I am thankful to Raju Shah of Hanover, MD for the design of the cover page.  Raju did an excellent job of incorporating flags of both India and USA in designing the cover.

We are thankful to Mr. Veni Sumaria of  Reading, MA who started a pioneer effort for the Oshwal Directory many years back.  We also must not forget to thank all the well wishers for their generous financial help to make this project happen.  We have listed all these families.

I thank my wife Vijya who supported this project with my long hours on telephone and computer.  I am very pleased to present this Directory to our community.  I hope it will be useful to all of us here and abroad.

Jayanti Galaiya
1996 Directory