Python3 Curses - Not able to set background color in gnome-terminal

Question

I observe a strange problem while running below code in gnome-terminal in a RHE6 linux machine.

Code snippet:

import curses                                                                                                                         

def main(stdscr):                                                       
    if curses.has_colors():                                             
        curses.start_color()                                            
        curses.use_default_colors()                                     
        for i in range(0, curses.COLORS):                               
            #curses.init_pair(i+1, 253, i)     # opt2                    
            curses.init_pair(i+1, i, 253)      # opt1                  
    try:                                                                
        #stdscr.bkgd(' ', curses.color_pair(8) | curses.A_REVERSE)  # opt2
        stdscr.bkgd(' ', curses.color_pair(8))                      # opt1
        for i in range(0, curses.COLORS):                               
            stdscr.addstr(str(i), curses.color_pair(i))                 

    except:                                                  
        print('Exception caught')                                         
    stdscr.refresh()                                                    
    stdscr.getch()                                                      

curses.wrapper(main) 

If i run this code ( as it is ) in Xterm, it works as expected and gives me a grey background. But if i run it in gnome terminal, it gives the default terminal background in all places where there is no character written. Wherever there is a character printed, it applies the correct background color.

if i use any other character instead of space (say, bkgd('.', attr) ) in the bkgd command, then the background is applied correctly

If i were to comment out the #opt1 lines and uncomment #opt2 lines, then it is applying the background correctly in both xterm and gnome-terminal. ( I can't use this method because in the real program, I want to enable support for REVERSE printing. )

I'm testing with python 3.4 in linux ( both the case of xterm and gnome-terminal )

it is behaving as i wanted in my OS X terminal with python 3.5 - but i think this has nothing to do with python version. My test with python 2.6 on the linux machine showed same behaviors as in 3.4.

I have a custom theme in gnome-terminal.

if anyone has any clue on this problem, that would be really helpful! Thank you all in advance!