Dutt, the well-known singer. But it was her cousin, adman and director Shyam Benegal, and artist K.H. Ara who were her biggest supporters. Ara, her mentor, included her in an exhibition by the Progressive Artists Group in 1960 at the Artist’s Centre in Mumbai and arranged her first show at the Jehangir Art Gallery in 1961. She sold her first painting, even before the exhibition, to Dr. Heinzmode, a German collector working at Shantiniketan, and at the same price that Ara charged.
Her first exhibitions were sold out but not the ones after that. So she took up a job teaching art to school children while continuing her studies alongside. “When at my job, I decided I was not going to compromise on my painting,” she says.