Andam is a visual story that reimagines South Asian femininity through a modern lens. At its heart, the concept explores how the South Asian diaspora in the UK are reviving and reinterpreting traditional beauty rituals we’ve grown up with, and how we embrace these precious parts of our heritage with the lives we’ve built here.

Going beyond the surface, and a bit more personal ; to me, Andam is inspired by the beauty rituals passed down to me by the women in my family. In India, at least in my experience, beauty has never felt purely superficial or visual. It’s something deeply personal, tied to tradition, connection, and emotion.
Practices like hair oiling, wearing bindis, applying mehendi (henna), nalugu snanam (a traditional herbal bath) have always been about more than just looking beautiful. These moments were about bonding. For me, they were intimate rituals that brought the women in my family closer, creating space for conversation, closeness, and care.

Now that I live far from home, no longer in Hyderabad with my mom and my ammama I’ve had to start doing these beauty rituals alone. That shift made me reflect. Were we doing these routines just for beauty’s sake, to get shinier hair or clearer skin? Or was it more about the time spent together? Because doing them in solitude feels entirely different. That contrast sparked the concept for this shoot: how do we, as the modern youth, reinterpret beauty traditions when we’re away from home? How do we carry forward these rituals in a way that still feels intimate and meaningful?