A large section of people in North India still think that King Ravi Varma was a Marathi born and raised in Bombay ..!  However, most of Ravi Varma's paintings are now in the private collections of some royal families in northern India.  The main reason for this was Ravi Varma's painting studio and painting printer in Bombay.  Raja has painted most of his paintings from this studio.  Many of his Verma studios were art students.  Among them is Dada Saheb Phalke, who later became the father of Indian cinema.  Raja Ravi Varma was the first Indian painter to use European technology in painting to paint beautiful moments in Indian epics and mythology.  Even before Raja Ravi Varma, European oil painting was used by Indian painters, but Raja's paintings became world famous.  His portraits are as famous as mythological paintings and he has painted innumerable paintings of many Indian aristocratic families at their request.  Such is the portrait of St. Gregorios (Parumala), the spiritual teacher of the Malankara Orthodox Church in Kerala.  Raja Ravi Varma was brought to the attention of the world by a Nair woman holding a child.  Apart from the image of him wearing his own Kerala style of dress, most of his other works feature women wearing saris like Marathi women.  The image of Shakuntala looking back like Darbha with the tip of the grass on her feet has earned Verma great acclaim.  This picture was written on the cover of the book when an Englishman translated the story of Shakuntala_Dushyanthan into English.

 Ravi Varma was born in 1848 at Kilimanoor Palace and died there in 1906.  Ravi Varma's parents were also famous in the field of art and literature for their extraordinary skills in painting as a child.  The Travancore sisters Lalitha, Padmini and Ragini, who later made great contributions to the film industry, and later Ambika, Sukumari, Shobhana and Vineeth, are considered to be related to Raja Ravi Varma.  Ravi Varma arrived at the Travancore royal palace in his early teens and became an inmate there.  At the age of 18, he married Bhagirathi Bhai of the Travancore dynasty. While living in Thiruvananthapuram, Ravi Varma became proficient in oil painting and portrait art. Shortly after his marriage, he traveled all over India.  He became acquainted with the paintings and sculptures of most of the famous temples in India.  At the end of that journey, he started an art studio in Ghatkopar, Bombay.  In an art exhibition in Vienna in 1873
 "Waiting for Papa" won the gold medal.  But the most famous was the 1893 painting exhibition in Chicago.  The exhibition was held in connection with the World Religious Conference attended by Swami Vivekananda.  Swami Vivekananda's world famous speech was delivered at that conference.  Raja's Damayanthi won the gold medal in the exhibition.  Swami Vivekananda and Raja Ravi Varma met recently in Chicago. Raja Ravi Varma brought international fame to Indian painting.  In 2014, a Hindi film titled Rang Razia starring Raja was released.  The film is directed by renowned director Kedan Mehta.  Another interesting fact is that a Marathi novel has been written based on the life of the king.  There is an art gallery in Vadodara dedicated only to the paintings of Raja Ravi Varma. However, this Malayalee still needs to be given due consideration in