AN ART GALLERY AT YOUR DOORSTEP

”

      The art of drawing beautiful designs in front of the house is a famous concept prevalent in India particularly in South India. This is called “ Kolam” in Tamil. In the bygone days when cementing the floor was not common, folks mixed cow dung in water and splashed it on the front porch. This served two purposes. First, it helped to settle the dust and give a neat appearance to the entrance of the house and second, cow dung is purported to have the inherent capacity to kill germs, spraying this disinfectant helped a long way in maintaining hygiene and keeping off contagious diseases.  Having cleaned and mopped the porch, it was only natural that one decorates it with some designs and that folks, is the genesis of kolam!  Further, on auspicious days it was mandatory to draw these kolam as it is a Hindu belief that the geometrical patterns & designs applied with rice flour at the entrance of a home, invites Goddess Lakshmi into the household, and drives away the evil spirits.

      Originally, in the golden years of plenty, rice powder was used to draw the patterns. Against the greenish brown background of the soil, the kolam drawn with coarsely ground white rice powder set off a beautiful sparkle in front of the house.  For drawing outdoors, rice powder was used and for decorating inside the house, rice flour was mixed with water and made into a wet paste. This glue like liquid was used for drawing. When dry the white colour sparkles brilliantly and it also stays on for a few days. Above all, keeping in line with the Hindu principle of Karma and Dharma these kolam with rice powder went a long way in bringing the daily bread on the ant’s table!

      Somewhere down the line, the practice of replacing the rice powder with soft white stone powder (mogu mavu) became prevalent probably due to the recession. The designs look just as vibrant and lovely with the stone powder; however the ants will have to now work harder for their daily bread.

      For ordinary days a small pattern will do and for a festival day the same pattern may with iteration be blown up into a mammoth design.

      The basic step involved in a kolam is first to keep small dots equidistantly. These dots will form the basic guide on which the kolam will be drawn. You start off with a row of dots which will form the main frame of the design. Above and below this main row, further dots are kept either one below the other or between two dots.   Sometimes equal number of dots is kept to form a square-ish box or the number of dots is reduced systematically to give a tapered look. The number of dots and their placement method will largely depend on the ultimate design that one has in mind.

      Having placed the dots, one can draw different types of kolams –

      One has to draw lines, either straight or curves, right over these dots (connecting these dots), to define various objects or motifs. The most common objects are flowers such as rose, lotus, lily etc; birds such as parrots; butterflies and some enthusiastic spirit may even venture to draw elephants and human forms. These types of kolams are normally decorated with colored powders and then it is termed as “ Rangoli”.

Sometimes, straight lines connecting the dots are drawn to form beautiful and complex geometric designs which are called “thaduku kolam” or mat designs – carpet designs.

      The next option is to draw curves around the dots. The most amazing and mind boggling maze like designs evolve out of such patterns. Most of these patterns start at one point, tour around the entire kolam and end at the same point leaving an intricate design behind which blows one’s mind off. I am most fascinated by these kolams which go well beyond the fathomable limits of a human imagination. These are called “Suzhi kolam”. One can draw small ones starting with a three by three matrix to big ones which resemble a chariot. This is called “ther kolam”.

      There is an entirely different genre of kolams where the dots are dispensed with. Batches of straight lines , normally two or in odd numbers such as three, five etc. are drawn free hand to form rectangles or squares. These are then polished off with lotus or other cute tendrils. To enhance the beauty, red clay is made into a thin paste and this is painted as a border or in the centre to set off the design and accentuate its beauty.

      When families were living in close groups there used to be such a competition in drawing these kolam in front of the house. The girls took great pride in being the first to finish the biggest design. During the Tamil month of Marghazy, which comes during the winter month of December, the competition becomes intense. Each day, before sunrise, the ladies of the house begin their artwork at the doorstep. Bigger the kolam, greater the pride. Finally, a pumpkin flower is propped on a cowdung ball and kept in the centre of the kolam for effect. Talking of flowers on a kolam, Kerala specializes in “Poo Kolam” where flowers of different hue are used for making the kolam.

      To stress the importance of Kolam, it can be said with assurance that,if one took the time and effort to look into the loft there will most certainly be a  well thumbed and soiled kolam book where probably our granny would most probably have copied some designs that took her fancy. This is handed down as an heirloom with each generation augmenting the design gallery. Some of the pages will be torn in half due to constant references, while some will be just as new. 
Over and above this linkage to one's past, drawing the kolam on the floor by bending over was the best possible "Tummy Trimmer" technique.    

  Living in apartments with hardly any space for showing one’s kolam power, a few lines is all that one can afford. In fact, stickers with beautiful kolam designs printed on them are stuck on the floor tile and voila there is your permanent kolam at your door step. They say that if god closes one door, he always opens another, that’s true for kolam too. Maybe, kolams are not popular anymore on doorsteps, but the number of websites dedicated entirely to kolam is quite encouraging. In fact, various organizations are conducting competitions and give away prestigious prizes and thereby they have ensured that this beautiful culture exclusive to our nation is not all lost.


HERE ARE A FEW OF MY FAVOURITE ONES.  I am a not-so-bad Kolam exerciser myself. here some I like most