Kute Kolams!

As the time is ripe for me to headstart to Hosur I had this neck deep work of cleaning home(read house keeping operations).Just when I was dusting my mom’s cupboard an old notebook caught my attention.Awed I opened.The papers were a pale yellow ocher but the designs were mesmerizing with simple dots and serpentine curves done with a pen which unfurled many memories.
That was kolam or Rangoli or Muggulu,a skill interwoven with traditional family life in TamilNadu.
I remember how my granny an early riser herself started her day by first watering the trees then spread the dung all over the frontyard evenly allowing it to set for a few minutes and drew kolam making it look beautiful with her skills with minimal erases.Dots would turn into wonderful designs in a matter of seconds and Voila! the kolam would be bordered beautifully.
Come Friday or any auspicious day there would be something called “padi kolam” with all horizontal,vertical and diagonal lines neatly drawn and bordered with something called “chemman”, a brickcolored stone like substance which when immersed in water turns soft and dipped with a small cloth spreading across the entire padi kolam appearing as a white-brick red colored combination.

More funda by my friend here:chemman means: semmaiyana man in thamizh. semmai means two things: sezhippu (bounty) and red man = soil semman = red soil

Rice flour is preferred for kolam not just for ornamental designs but also as a gesture for ants and birds as breakfast .Now its been replaced by other means wherein the white powder has some chemicals too.Colors were a strict no-no as it's considered harmful.The rice was pounded at home itself.Eco friendliness is not a new concept and has been prevalent since eons.
Drawing it requires skill and perception and whole lot of patience.
Come the month of Margazhi the frontage of houses would be welcoming with a design portrayed “Sun God”,Pongal panai and karambu(sugarcane).Even with the arrival of new child the cradle kolams ornamented our entrance.
With seasons changing kolams do change.The Pavakkai design(bitter gourd),pambu kolam(snake kolam),Mayil Kolam(peacock) and ther kolam(chariot car) decorated the frontage in a cyclic rhythm.
Granny is now old and her hands stiffened.She has lost the magic but her children have greatly inherited that art.In the world of hustle bustle these things have died down and taken a Sabbatical.Time has replaced with ready made kolam designs,impressions of them in metal with just a spread of the powder design taking forms.Even living rooms of our ancestral house were painted beautifully and that would welcome the momemt one steps in admiringly.

I have failed to learn the magic and just that I have ziltch patience I manage a decent jiffy ones in our frontyard with a nonchalant attitude of what makes the difference to draw it or not..I still remember my over enthusiastic classmates having a penchant to know new designs would exchange and even maintain notes,some elephant design to some floral designs and whatnot.All I do is watch silently.Kolams indeed have taken a step forward by its incarnation in the form of softwares but still hand drawn one is irreplacable. It's true that the coming generations would have to study that in History lessons.
“I wish kolams had a patent.”