This is Jaspreet. I met her in the summer of 2021, sitting under the shade of a neem tree surrounded by rice fields, filming her family as they explained why her husband Avtar Singh had committed suicide at age 28. Hers was one of many stories I captured that summer, travelling Punjab with my father.
I had read the statistics before I went: almost thirty suicides a day in southern Punjab. Agriculture is declining, and climate change comes like a thief in the night, stealing water and wilting crops. But statistics had not prepared me for meeting the widows and the children left behind. I couldn't help but wonder, if my parents hadn't immigrated to the US, could I have ended up as one of those orphaned children?
Jaspreet faced the unimaginable. My reason for capturing this in a painting is to bring attention to someone who has been looked past all her life.
All profit from this painting will be donated to families through the Adopt-a-Family program: https://dvnetwork.org/projects/adopt-a-family-program
This one isn't available as a print yet. The painting is all here to look at in the meantime.
