India, April 4 -- The Hindi poet Dushyant says, "A true artist portrays what they have lived and suffered". And you can see it plainly and eloquently in Zarina Hashmi's art.

Zarina, who passed away in 2020, was born in 1937 and raised in Aligarh, in what is Uttar Pradesh today. She was only 10 when Independence turned her world upside down. Her family was Muslim, and had to relocate across the border at Partition. Though they later returned to India, Zarina grappled with the loss of her childhood home. As an adult, she moved from country to country - first with her Indian diplomat husband, later in search of a permanent home to practise her art, which she finally established in New York.

Art critics often describe her work - drawing, pr...