Love him or hate him, it’s hard to ignore Raja Ravi Varma, whose works pervade a national consciousness. His rendition of Indian women — whether inspired by mythology or borrowed from reality, a milkmaid or the goddess Saraswati — leaves viewers perplexed. The protagonists of his paintings are emblems of femininity, and that, precisely, is the problem. “Raja Ravi Varma’s works embody the dominant cultural way of looking at women as passive or inferior to men; they don’t do anything to critique the status quo,” says Sharmistha Ray, artist and founder of Bellevue Salons, a platform for conversations.