India, Aug. 1 -- Shakuntala and her friends. Who among us hasn't helped a friend compose the perfect Miss You text to bae? Raja Ravi Varma's lithograph depicts a moment in Kalidas's epic, when Shakuntala in her hermitage is writing a love letter to King Dushyant with help from besties Priyamvada and Anasuya. Painted in 1876. Relatable every day.

Indian women on a 1905 postcard. MV Dhurandhar's paintings of everyday women of more than a century ago are legendary. He sent this postcard to his art teacher E Greenwood, who'd retired and was living in England. Friendship, fashion, freedom seem to come alive in the work as six Bombay women gather for a bit of chit-chat. They're stylish -nine-yard saris, European-style blouses, pearls, flowers ...