a tribute to AMRITA SHER-GILL

i recently leafed through the biography of the famous beautiful painter amrita shergil.the book seers through her short life with few illustrations.i was never much a biography person,but i was curious to know about this female who my friend described as a nymphomaniac.them somewhere i heard that she was a painter and a raving beauty.curiouser and curiouser,i searched the library for her.but she was issued.i had to wait nearly a month to get to know her.surprisingly,i did not find her pretty till i saw her works...her paintings ,even in the pictures,were alive to me..more than words i devoured the powerful colours that a half indian,half hungarian girl represented in those oils...as for the nympho part,the writer has carefully made it a point to just avoid that portion of her life,but still not omitting the usual details..the life of an eccentric,painter,lustrous female,was virtually reproduced in front of me....and i could not put the book down till i sank in all her life in one gulp..in the end,it came as a surprise,her demise at such a young age of 28...but then she had lived her life to he fullest...the reason for her living,was her paintings,other than that,she was in and out of relationships,had a husband who did not care who she slept with but loved and supported her....she saw the world with her own eyes...well travelled but found her heart in the beauty of india...somehow,her paintings are not bleak like the west,but are vibrant,full of colours from the east...yes,she was wholly ours...her body may have been given to different men,but her heart was only for india....her art was for india...she must be accepted with her splendour and the aura she posessed...even after her death,her mystery drives readers like me to her art...a life well spent..