Living in the West, we are far removed from the environments in which our parents and grandparents were brought up in. We are at a loss. We are deprived of the language, the art, the food, and the attire that are native to us. I came to realize how much of my own culture and heritage were missing from my life. Simple things, such as home gardens filled with jasmine, fine chikan-kari kurtas, or protective Quranic verses painted on homes, were not part of my memory growing up in Canada. Thus, calligraphy and embroidery gave me an avenue to change that, to keep our visual traditions alive in a faraway land.