the famous painting Meishan Bridge pictured drying in the background, and interacted with a few political top brass after Phase-I of the Chinese Hundred Flowers Campaign. In unison with Rahul Sankrityayan, Rammanohar's creative initiative in cultural diplomacy has been credited with easing tensions substantially over the disputed Sino-Indian border for a few years. Rammanohar also spread Indian art overseas while personally mastering all three far-eastern schools of painting Kung-pi, Shui-mo and Xie-yi, as well as the lacquer-work. As such, classic Indian influences are clearly evident in some of the artworks of Ye Qianyu, Shi Lu and many other renowned far-eastern painters. Rammanohar has, thus, occasionally been referred-to as the Huen Tsang of India. Interaction with contemporaries Of his Indian contemporaries, he was particularly close to S. H. Raza, B. C. Sanyal, K. G. Subramanyan and Narayan Shridhar Bendre. Raza visited Rammanohar's studio in India and he also visited Raza's studio in 1997 during his sojourn in Europe. Likewise, Jagdish Swaminathan in 1987 and M. F. Husain in 1986 visited Rammanohar's studio, in addition to visiting his exhibitions in India and Europe. Modern painter Akbar Padamsee was so inspired by his art-genre that he not only acknowledged it but also expressed his keen desire to learn it from Rammanohar. With Rammanohar, some of these artists even exchanged paintings as gifts. As such, in addition to artworks of the above, his diverse collection also included paintings of Kattingeri Krishna Hebbar, Abdulrahim Apabhai Almelkar, Gopal Ghose, Manjit Bawa, Jeram Patel, Jyoti Bhatt, Jogen Chowdhury, Manohar Akre, Ram Kumar in addition to those of the Santiniketan art maestros, that he gave away. Other artists, sculptors and printmakers who visited Rammanohar's studio from time to time included Surendranath Kar, Avtar Singh Panwar, Kripal Singh Shekhawat, Balbir Singh Katt, Ghulam Mohammed Sheikh, Chinmay Mehta, Somnath Hore, Sukhen Ganguly, Sovon Som, Jadunath Supakar, Biswarup Bose. Even litterateurs like Nirmal Verma and Ashok Vajpeyi visited his studio-cum-residence. International collections The British Museum, London, UK. The British Empire and Commonwealth Museum, Bristol, UK. The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK. The Organization for Industrial, Spiritual and Cultural Advancement International, Tokyo, Japan. Tate Britain at Millbank, London, UK. The Imperial Commonwealth Institute, London, UK. The University of Saskatchewan, Canada. The University of Birmingham Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham, UK. University of Reading, UK. AAFC, Federal Government of Canada. Air India Art Collection, Mumbai, India. The Observer, Mumbai, India. Lalit