New Delhi, May 10 -- In February 1906, the 10-year-old rani of Travancore was taken to the upstairs window of an old palace. Standing below in the courtyard were two boys, one a college-goer, the other his teenaged younger brother. As she studied them, the rani was asked to select the one she liked. Her mother was keen on the older candidate-a good-looking, "very strong" fellow-as were others at court. Indeed, the boy was so handsome and well-proportioned that the artist Raja Ravi Varma had had him model as Lord Rama for his painting, Sri Rama Vanquishing the Sea. But the rani selected the younger boy, elevating him from life as a country aristocrat into the seat of royal consort, and in the 1920s he would wield much power when his wife s...