 Her sister Kamala was also a dancer at Uday Shankar's ballet troupe and later married film director Amiyo Chakraborty.Kamala had a long drawn affair and was in a live-in-relationship with her sister Lakshmi's brother-in-law sitarist Ravi Shankar.During a period of illness, Lakshmi had to give up dancing, and already having had a background of Carnatic music, she undertook learning Hindustani classical music for many years under Ustad Abdul Rehman Khan.