This Women’s Day, Roohdaar Films & Manish Chaubey celebrate the Invisible Strength behind "Mother of Many Hands" by unveiling the poster officially

In a world where empowerment is often measured through titles, awards, and visibility, filmmaker Manish Chaubey’s upcoming documentary, Mother of Many Hands, looks in the opposite direction. It turns its gaze toward a woman whose strength unfolds far from the spotlight.

On International Women’s Day, when global conversations celebrate women leaders, entrepreneurs, and achievers, Chaubey’s film highlights a different kind of heroism. The quiet endurance of millions of women who hold families and cities together through invisible labour.
 
Set in Hyderabad, the documentary follows the life of a young migrant mother who earns her living as a domestic worker while raising three children. Her life carries the weight of loss, responsibility, and migration, yet it is built on a simple and uncompromising principle - dignity.
 
The woman at the centre of the film migrated from Maharashtra to Hyderabad after marrying for love. Like many young couples, she arrived with hope and dreams of building a stable life. Reality, however, unfolded differently. Economic hardship soon became a daily reality. Her husband now drives a cab to support the family while she works in several households as a domestic help. Together, they struggle to provide stability for their children.
 
The most painful chapter in her life came with a loss. A tragedy that reshaped her emotional world but did not break her determination. What makes her story remarkable is not just hardship but choice.
 
In a society where economic desperation sometimes pushes people toward quick or unethical ways of earning money, she consciously chose the path of honest labour. Cleaning homes, washing utensils, and managing long working hours became her way of preserving dignity.
 
Behind this film stands Manish Chaubey, an Indie filmmaker and producer whose own journey mirrors the idea of reinvention. He hails from Uttarakhand and was raised in Delhi. He began his career as a software engineer after graduating from Delhi University while actively participating in theatre and leading his college drama society.
 
Drawn by storytelling, he eventually moved to Mumbai to study filmmaking, working as an assistant director before joining the ABP Group as a camera person and reporter, experiences that shaped his sensitivity toward real human stories. He later worked in entertainment PR and artist management, collaborating with leading figures in the Indian film industry and gaining insight into both the creative and commercial sides of cinema. He is a proud member of the Western India Film & TV Producers’ Association (WIFPA), the Indian Film & Television Directors’ Association (IFTDA), and the Mumbai Indie Film Society.
 

In 2024, he co-founded Roohdaar Films & Entertainment with his partner Reeshma Radhakrrishnan. The name “Roohdaar,” inspired by the Urdu word for soul and by the iconic character portrayed by Irrfan Khan in Haider, reflects their shared belief in emotionally resonant storytelling.
 
For Manish, the decision to make this documentary came from observing the lives of workers who remain largely unseen.
 “Stories like hers exist everywhere around us, yet they rarely become the subject of cinema,” he says. “I was drawn to her quiet strength. She never sees herself as extraordinary, but the choices she makes every day reflect incredible resilience.”
 
Mother of Many Hands adopts an observational storytelling style. Instead of narration or dramatic commentary, the camera follows the rhythm of her daily life - Early mornings, household chores, caring for children, and brief moments of exhaustion and reflection.
 
Through these intimate observations, the film reveals the emotional and physical labour that domestic workers carry in urban India. Domestic workers form one of the largest informal workforces in the country. Despite sustaining millions of households, their lives often remain invisible in public narratives. By focusing on one woman’s journey, the documentary attempts to restore dignity and visibility to a community rarely seen on screen.
 
The title itself reflects the many roles a mother performs. A mother’s hands cook, clean, comfort, earn, and protect. In homes where survival demands constant effort, those hands become many hands.
 
Chaubey believes Women’s Day should also celebrate the everyday resilience that often goes unrecognised. “We often celebrate women who break glass ceilings,” he says. “But there are millions of women who quietly rebuild their lives every single day. Their strength deserves to be seen too.”
 
With Mother of Many Hands, the filmmaker invites audiences to look beyond headlines and toward the unnoticed acts of courage that shape ordinary lives. This Women’s Day, the film offers a simple but powerful reminder that sometimes the strongest stories are the ones unfolding quietly before the world wakes up.
 
International Women’s Day often celebrates visible achievements. Women who break barriers in politics, business, science, and art. Those stories get celebrated and acknowledged. But another landscape of strength rarely enters public celebration. The millions of women who hold families together through quiet labour do not argue loudly. Mother of Many Hands belongs to that landscape.