In Paris, Amrita Sher-Gil became close friends with several artists, including Marie-Louise Chassany, Boris Taslitzky, Denise Proutaux and Marie-Yvonne Meheut. Illustrations/Kalyani Ganapathy for Amrita Sher-Gil: Rebel With A Paintbrush, HarperCollins Children's Books

Before Amrita Dalma Sher-Gil (1913-1941) came to be known as one of the finest avant-garde female artists of the 20th century, she was still a child, who was torn between the mundaneness of Europe and her intense longing for India. Captivated by the vast palette of colours she saw around her, Amrita, who was born to a Sikh father, Umrao Singh Sher-Gil, and Hungarian mother, Marie Antoinette Gottesmann-Erdöbaktay, had a peripatetic life that would take her across the length and breadth of two different worlds, and would also, influence the artist that she would go on to become. However, when children's writer Anita Vachharajani - piqued by one of Amrita's paintings, Three Girls - read about her, she found that the story of this versatile painter had been overshadowed by everything, except art.