Adam & Eve

This series began a few months after I started working on Bare Trip. At that time, I was deeply immersed in exploring my own body in nature, nude, vulnerable, present. But I also began to sense a need to extend this vision. I wanted to document others in this raw state, to explore nudity not as spectacle but as human truth. The problem was, I had no one to shoot with.

I reached out to many. Some models from Bombay replied with demands of ₹1,00,000 for a single nude session, far beyond anything I could afford. Most never responded at all. Still, I kept sharing my own self-portraits, mages of me, stripped bare in open spaces, and gradually, a few people who practiced nudism began following me. But conversations rarely led anywhere. There was always hesitation. Always a wall of mistrust.

Until one day, I received a message.

It was from a woman living far away. She had seen my work and was curious. She wasn’t looking for money or fame, but she didn’t want her identity revealed. We spoke a few times, and even though the idea of a nude outdoor shoot with a stranger was completely new to her, something in our conversations built a fragile sense of trust. She agreed. I told her I couldn’t pay her, but I’d cover her travel, food, and stay. I sent money for her bus ticket. A few days later, she took a long overnight journey to Pune.

It was the first time I would shoot a woman nude, and in an outdoor setting. There was no team, no assistant, no safety net. Just me and her, two people from different worlds, bound by a desire to create something honest.

When she arrived in Pune, it was late at night. I had borrowed a friend’s room for her stay. We were strangers, technically, but there was a quiet understanding in the air. No words could fully prepare us for what we were about to do the next day, so we just sat together. Two people. Two bodies. One silence.

To ease the tension, we decided to get naked. Not for the camera, not for desire, just to be comfortable with each other’s presence. To disarm the awkwardness. She was exhausted and had back pain from the journey, so I asked if I could massage her back. She agreed.

As I began gently pressing her muscles, something shifted in me. I had never experienced physical closeness with a woman before. I didn’t know the rules. I didn’t know how desire and care coexisted. All I knew was that I felt drawn to her, not just sexually, but emotionally. I was seeking closeness. Love, even. As my hand drifted toward her breast, she stopped me.

That pause was everything.

In that moment, I could’ve stayed silent. I could’ve pulled away and pretended it didn’t happen. But instead, I told her the truth.

I told her that I had never had sex. That I’d never truly been intimate with anyone. That I didn’t know how to navigate moments like these. That I wasn’t trying to take anything from her—I was just overwhelmed with feelings I had never expressed before.

I told her that my body craved closeness, not for release, but for connection. That I didn’t know how to do it "right." I only knew how to be honest.

She listened. She didn’t shame me. She saw me. She saw the raw truth of someone who wasn’t pretending. And I think in that moment, we both understood each other better, not as a photographer and a model, but as two vulnerable people, trying to be real in a world that rarely allows it.

Before she went to sleep, she said, “You can touch my upper body, just not below.” But I didn’t. I lay still beside her. I realized what I truly needed wasn’t permission, it was peace. I wasn’t looking for a body. I was looking for a moment where I didn’t have to hide who I was.

That moment built trust more than any contract or promise could have.

The next morning, we woke early and drove nearly 150 km to one of my favorite shooting locations, a quiet hilltop grassland lined with Nilgiri trees. At first, she was nervous. But then the landscape took over: the fog, the morning sun, the wide open fields. And maybe, what happened the night before played its part too. She saw I was safe. That I could be trusted with her vulnerability.

We wandered through the grass. We ran. We laughed. We stood still. And before we even realized it, we were naked, together, not for each other, but with each other.

And yet, even in that state of freedom, I noticed something subtle and heartbreaking.

Every time I pointed the camera toward her face, she turned away.
She would hide behind her hair.
Look somewhere else.
Cover parts of herself with a soft, unconscious motion.

Even in the freest space, away from the city, away from people, alone in nature, she still couldn’t fully show her face. There was something deeper inside her that said, “I can be naked, but I can’t be seen.”

That stayed with me.

We shot in multiple locations throughout the day. The images weren’t planned; they happened through movement, through breath, through instinct. And as the sun began to fade, we drove back to Pune in silence, full, not with words, but with trust.

This was the beginning of my new series.

It began with rejection, loneliness, and unanswered messages. But it truly started in that room, with a moment of honesty that neither of us had prepared for. What followed wasn’t just art—it was trust in motion, captured in light and skin and wind.

This series is about what happens when we stop performing.
When we don’t pretend to be cool, or strong, or experienced.
When we say, “I don’t know—but I’m willing to be here, fully.”

It’s not just about nudity.
It’s about what remains when we take everything else off.

It’s about the courage to look someone in the eye and say:
“This is who I am.”

And yet, after all this, one question still echoes in my heart:

Why is it that so many people want to be free, but they cannot?

Chapter Two: Entering the Wild Again

After I posted the images from our first shoot together, something shifted.

People were shocked. Some confused. Others quietly curious.
Followers began bouncing—some leaving, some arriving.
I had posted a nude woman on my profile—not blurred, not censored, not hiding behind metaphor. Just there. Real. Alive.

It wasn’t just about nudity anymore. It was about trust. It was about entering the invisible world of Indian nudity—a place that most pretend doesn’t exist.

Up until then, it had only been me: my body, my solitude, my documentation. But now, people saw that this was expanding. That I wasn’t stopping with myself. That I had begun exploring freedom with others—starting with her.

It made many uncomfortable. My DMs flooded with judgments and quiet encouragement alike. And slowly, other profiles—female, male, anonymous—began showing up. Nudists. Explorers. Quiet seekers.
No one had done outdoor nude shoots like this recently. And definitely not in India.

Still, the censorship came fast. Algorithms punished me. Reports piled up. But it didn’t matter. The images had already left a mark.

A month later, I got a call from her. She was in Goa for work.
My heart lit up. It was time to enter the wild again.

I knew Goa. Its textures, its secrets, its sun. I’d spent time there before and had a few good connections. I didn’t have money for stay, but she had already booked the room. Perfect.

I reached in the early morning. She came to pick me up, and we went straight to her room. This time, we weren’t naked. Our bodies already knew each other. There was no need to break the ice.

Instead, I started shooting her in this beautiful dress she was wearing.
It was elegant, yet playful, flowing in the Goan light like a soft conversation.
I called my friend Shabu, someone who lived there and understood my kind of madness. When he heard I was in town for a shoot, he didn’t hesitate.
“Broooo just come to Arambol. We’ll do it.”

We took a scooter ride to his place, an old Goan house with a wild little backyard. That night, we stayed there. No rush. Just good food, good people, and the quiet before the storm.

Next morning, we all headed out: me, her, Shabu, his cousin, and the cousin’s girlfriend. Destination, Arambol Beach.

As we approached, something stirred in me.
The light. The textures. The way the beach opened like a cinematic painting.
I spotted this golden rock formation by the water, like a miniature mountain made of earth and sun, and my instincts took over.

I gave Shabu the camera, dropped all my clothes, and ran straight toward it.
The beach was watching.
My skin against the warm rock felt like some ancient reunion.
I climbed up barefoot, free, naked, and as I stood on the top, fully exposed, something profound happened.

An old woman, walking with her husband on the shore below, looked up and yelled,
“I want to be like that!”

My heart cracked wide open. That one sentence carried generations of suppressed desire, joy, rebellion, and longing. And in that moment, I felt more alive than I had in months.

As I climbed back down, I found a ₹10 note tucked between two rocks. A strange, poetic gesture from nature, perhaps, a reminder that currency flows in many forms.

Later that day, Shabu took us to a hidden spot behind Arambol: Sweet Lake.
It was a place very few knew. Tucked away behind trees and hills, it was still untouched by tourists and filters.

There, me and her undressed once again and entered the water.
No posing. No performance. Just bodies flowing together, like liquid skin.

At one point, she stood behind me, facing the opposite direction, arms gently wrapped. And just then, a snake entered the water near us.

Shabu saw it. I saw it. But I didn’t panic.
The snake touched my body and swam silently beneath a stone.
It didn’t feel threatening, it felt like nature acknowledging us. Wild meeting wild.
I never told her in the moment. She was too deep in her freedom.

People on the shore watched us, some in shock, others pretending not to look.
When more people came closer, she submerged herself, keeping her body under the water. Even in liberation, there was still the instinct to hide. The old echoes of shame.

Afterward, we wandered further into the jungle, barefoot and sun-washed.
And something incredible happened.

Seeing us naked and uninhibited, Shabu’s cousin and his girlfriend decided to join.
We said, “Just go for it, bro.”
And suddenly, there were four of us, bare, wild, and soft in the jungle.
Only Shabu stayed clothed.

We teased him to join. “Come on, Shabu, become one with us!”
He laughed and stayed in his corner.
I said, “Shabu is the guy who will charge you to be naked, but he won’t do it himself.”
That’s Shabu. Always there. Always smiling.
A good soul.

That entire day became something eternal.
A memory stitched into sunlight, freedom, and laughter.
It happened on a Friday.
And yes, it was a Good Friday.

That evening, back in the room, we sat and went through the images.
And one photo struck her deeply.

It was the first time she allowed me to post a picture with her face visible.

She looked at me and said:

“This is not just a shoot. This is Adam and Eve.”

And right there, a name was born.
Not just for the pictures, but for the series.
Adam and Eve.
Two people choosing to be naked, not in shame, but in truth.

She said she couldn’t stop herself from letting go after seeing that image.
That this wasn’t about being watched.
This was about being seen.