Sunlight pours into a room with floral-patterned wallpaper, where a coterie of women sit around a large table. Dressed in collared blouses and plain skirts or saris, the women sew and read with immense focus, aware of the watchful presence of other women standing behind them. This moment, possibly staged, was captured in a photograph in 1904, in the borough of Hackney. It is one of the rare records of the Ayahs’ Home, a refuge in East London for colonial South Asian ayahs who had crossed oceans caring for British…
