Kharupetia, Assam is where Jasmin’s story begins—a small village where she grew up surrounded by familiar food, language, people and traditions. Today, at just 21, she is raising her daughter Laiba in Bengaluru, thousands of kilometres away from the home she once knew. Here, almost everything feels different.
The food tastes unfamiliar, the language sounds different, and the people she now considers her own come from places she once knew nothing about. Yet somewhere between Assam and Bengaluru, Jasmin is discovering that ideas of caste, community, identity and belonging are not always as fixed as they appear.
This intimate journey forms the heart of Laiba Ka Ghar, a documentary short directed by Archana Phadke, featuring Jasmina Khatun and Laiba. The film premiered on YouTube on 1 October 2026 and is presented by the Azim Premji Foundation. Framed as a story of migration, motherhood and resilience, it follows Jasmin as she builds a life and raises her daughter in a city far removed from her Assamese roots.
Jasmin’s journey goes beyond geographical migration. Moving from a small village in Assam to Bengaluru means entering a social and cultural environment where familiar assumptions are constantly challenged. Different languages, food habits, communities and social relationships become part of her everyday life. In this new setting, notions of caste and community that may once have seemed firmly defined begin to acquire different meanings.
The relationship between Jasmin and Laiba shows Motherhood giving the story its emotional core, as Jasmin attempts to create a secure home for her daughter while adapting to an unfamiliar environment herself. Her experience shows the resilience of young women who leave behind familiar surroundings and negotiate the demands of building a new life.
The title Laiba Ka Ghar carries a meaning larger than a physical house. It raises a fundamental question: What makes a home? Is it the place where one is born, the community one grows up in, or the people with whom one builds a life? For Jasmin, home appears to be something continuously created through care, relationships and resilience.
Her story also offers a glimpse into the wider experience of migration within India. Bengaluru represents a dramatically different social and cultural landscape from rural Assam, yet it is also a place where people from different regions, languages and communities live alongside one another. For migrants, such movement can bring opportunities as well as unfamiliar challenges, forcing them to negotiate identity while creating new networks of belonging.
By concentrating on the everyday life of one young mother, Laiba Ka Ghar gives a human face to a larger social phenomenon. Jasmin’s experience demonstrates how migration can transform not only where people live, but also how they understand themselves, their relationships and the communities to which they belong.
The documentary is presented by the Azim Premji Foundation, established in 2001 by philanthropist and former Wipro chairman Azim Premji. The Foundation works towards a more just, equitable and humane society, with a major emphasis on strengthening public systems, particularly government education.
Laiba Ka Ghar is a story that begins in Assam but reaches far beyond the Brahmaputra as Jasmin recalls vividly. It is about a young woman carrying memories of one home while creating another, and about a mother determined to give her daughter a sense of security in an unfamiliar world. In Jasmin’s journey, home becomes less about a particular place and more about the people, relationships and resilience that make belonging possible.