“Creativity doesn’t wait for that perfect moment. It fashions its own perfect moments out of ordinary ones.”
Bruce Garrabrandt
Kolam – A South Indian Tradition
Everyday small routines make the culture of a place. One such traditional routine is the drawing of a Kolam outside homes. A kolam is a ritual pattern that has straight lines, squares, animal, bird and flower figures, wavy lines, all interconnected with each other, to create a visual delight. These interconnections could be free-flowing or created by joining dots symmetrically.
Called Kolam in Tamil, Rangoli in Kannada and Muggu in Telugu, we find these patterns in almost all states of India, although known by other names also. These patterns vary from simple ones drawn daily to specific ones for festivals and to elaborate intricate ones during weddings and community events. Even the material used could range from dry rice flour to wet rice paste to white stone powder and artificially coloured stone powder, too.
Cultural symbolism
The practice of creating Kolam patterns originated in the southern region of India in Tamilnadu. From ancient times, the first thing Tamil women would do at the break of dawn is to smear the outer entrance with a fine paste of cow dung and use rice flour to draw a Kolam on this smooth surface.
There are different reasons given for making a kolam. It is not a mere decoration to beautify homes and welcome visitors. It acts as a protection from the evil spirits, as also from ants and insects. The ants get drawn to the rice flour and use it as food, so do small birds and insects, in a way living in harmony with nature.
Kolam drawing has off-late drawn mathematicians and anthropologists to understand more about the Tantric-looking patterns. As a practice, Kolam, a South Indian tradition with origins from 300 CE and still performed in the 21st century, continues to charm everyone by its simple complexity.
