Spanning India, East Africa and the UK, Nalini explores the connected histories of Arpita Shah, her mother and her grandmother. Bringing contemporary portraits and still lifes together with family photographs and heirloom objects, the series traces the effects of migration, distance and loss across generations. Shah’s search through family archives and visits to places connected with her maternal ancestors led to new discoveries about their lives and relationships. The title is her grandmother’s name and the Sanskrit word for lotus. Flowers recur as offerings to the women in her family: the lotus symbolises femininity, fertility and rebirth, while bougainvillea connects memories of India and East Africa. Photographs of bodies, possessions and places bring these family histories together.


Mehmdabad is a close photograph of pale, patterned sari fabric falling in vertical folds. In her 2018 essay for 1000 Words, Emilia Terracciano discusses Mehmdabad, reporting in Shah's own words that the sari had been "passed down through generations and made somewhere in East Africa". Terracciano notes that "when worn, the patli of a sari is hand-gathered into even pleats below the navel to create a graceful, decorative effect like the petals of a lotus flower – ‘almost like another skin’ – by great-grandmother, grandmother, mother and now by Shah herself."