The film begins in present time where auction bids for Raja Ravi Varma's paintings are reaching multiple crores. When we flashback, it's in a courtroom in the nineteenth century, where the artist (Randeep Hooda) is being tried in an obscenity case filed by fundamentalists.

For artists in India, Raja Ravi Varma is an icon. He brought together the western style and Indian subjects, and made God available to each and every household in the country. He is a symbol who fought the society for the freedom of expression - something that we struggle with even after a century has passed.

'Rang Rasiya' is more about what it could have been than what it is. Here's a great story of a world class painter of the 19th century, Raja Ravi Varma, who also boasts of an utterly admirable and charming personality. Director Ketan Mehta chose well to tell this story on screen but unfortunately, failed largely in bringing the magic alive.

Ketan Mehta's film Rang Rasiya, a biopic of the artist Raja Ravi Varma, deals with artistic censorship, a subject that remains immensely relevant in a country where filmmakers are asked to cut out dialogues and trim scenes by 20 percent just cause the censor board said so.

"Till now, we have had no access to our gods and goddesses. You are the one who's made it possible". A character, presumably of ordinary origin, says this to Raja Ravi Varma in 'Rang Rasiya', after watching the first public exhibition of his paintings. This sentence tells us just how deep the influence of the painter is not just in the Indian art world, but in all the worlds that are created when art and culture and society collide. Varma was a rare radical break-away in a country which was, when he was in his prime, fighting enslavement not just by the British, but by the gatekeepers of high art, who happened, naturally, to be 'high-caste'.

Ketan Mehta's Rang Rasiya-a period biopic of arguably India's most influential painter Raja Ravi Varma-will be remembered not for its subversive images and tacky craft, but for its counterintuitive storytelling.

Based on Desai's novel on Raja Ravi Varma (Randeep Hooda), the film deals with the court case slapped on the iconic artist for painting nude images of women and giving face to Indian Goddesses. Religious gurus filed him for propagating vulgarity and hurting religious sentiments. The film traces his story through his childhood, his marriage, his muses, his love and inspiration from Sugandha (Nandana Sen) who pushed him to deliver his best work and of course about how the fate of that case changed the face of law's perception towards art and censorship.

Art-centric biopics are a rarity in Hindi cinema. There isn't anything of significance, therefore, that Rang Rasiya can be measured against. Just as well. This remarkable film is in a league of its own in many ways. Writer-director Ketan Mehta's cinematic celebration of the life and times of Raja Ravi Varma skillfully harmonises the sweep of period drama, the allure of pretty images and the impact of emotional intensity on a wide canvas that delivers more than just pretty frames.

Many Indian filmmakers would have read this quote and watched his films, but rarely did they think of implementing it in its actual sense. But, Ketan Mehta is not one of them, as his Rang Rasiya is indeed about the colours of passion. The film, which claims to be based on Ranjit Desai's biography of renowned painter Raja Ravi Varma, is a journey where souls get undressed and nakedness finds a new purpose.