Creative Spotlight: "The Legacy of Her Labour"

This photograph honours the sacred, embodied labour of Punjabi women, a quiet legacy passed from hand to hand, gesture to gesture, often unseen and unrecorded by history. In the layered touch of grandmother, mother, and child, intergenerational care resonates not through words but through the intimacy of everyday gestures, which may appear small but form the scaffolding upon which generations are built. For women like my Biji (Grandmother), love often meant sacrificing their dreams so others could reach theirs. She never had the chance to learn to write, yet her hands held the weight of futures not yet imagined. As her granddaughter, completing a PhD, I move through spaces she was never permitted to enter, carried by the memory of her unconditional love and quiet strength. While these hands have long been made invisible, this photograph stands as a tribute to the women whose labour, love, and prayers shaped the world, even when the world refused to witness them.