Skip to main content

Kolam - A South Indian Art Form


When you look at things a little closely you tend to realize there is so much more to the small things we do every day. Take art for instance. Isn't art everywhere? Well, of course like beauty, it lies in the eyes of the beholder but I am sure you can find art in many things around you/ in those things you do.

The tradition of drawing beautiful geometrical patterns using rice flour or chalk flour has been in practice in South Indian homes since ancient times. This art is called ‘Kolam’ and women draw this patterned art on the wet ground or porch outside their houses every morning and evening. It is more of a custom here down south. If only Da Vinci and Picasso had known of such a thing, they could have got more perception to their artwork.

Some of the patterns drawn are unbelievably complicated and such pain is taken during special festivals and occasions in India. ‘Pongal’, the harvest festival of Tamil Nadu sees Hindu women drawing up several amazing designs of ‘Kolam’ around their houses.

Here are some Kolam patterns that my sweet friend Shruthi sketched for me in like 10 minutes!!! I can’t help but admire her creativity and patience. 


Kolam - An art form less known outside India

Neli Kolam / Kolam with curves

Lamp Design

This one may look simple but when I saw her connect the dots in style, it was totally jaw-dropping


When I asked my grandma what the significance of drawing a Kolam was, she told me it feeds thousands of ants every day and it is a great exercise as one has to bend, twist and turn so as to get a perfect Kolam. She told me it signifies a welcome sign as it is drawn in front of the house to welcome guests who come home. So we do it for our well being and the well being of those little ants and insects that feed on the powder. That makes perfect sense.





Have you ever tried drawing a Kolam? Try out simple patterns and work your way up to the really cool ones. Google does help you with that too! :)



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A life without pencil erasers?

This morning, I got a good dose of philosophy from the newspaper. It isn’t very often that you get to read unique articles and this particular one definitely made my Friday morning a thoughtful one. It was the ‘World View’ column with the title “Pencil Erasers may be the ‘devil’” that caught my attention. It got me thinking about the process of unlearning taught to us at school. A lot of questions popped up. Why do we hide our mistakes? Why isn’t it okay to make mistakes? Why are we taught to make up for a mistake? Why aren’t we taught to look at the mistake and learn from it? Why do we erase a mistake? Why aren’t we being naturally ourselves? Why do we need an eraser? The last question is what instigated me to write this post. What if Edward Nairne had not invented an eraser by accident? What if we were never introduced to the concept of the eraser at school! I should admit that the little wad of rubber that undoes all the mistakes made by your mighty pencil is inde...
11 comments
Read more

Diet Horror Story

Food in the time of dieting. This is exactly like love in the time of Cholera, only, here, the love is for food. Your cravings are at an all-time high, you surprisingly become more lazy, you feel anxious when eating out, you are looking up every diet plan there is in the planet, your best friend suddenly looks thinner, your weighing machine needs repair and perhaps you are even subconsciously praying to god to help you shed those extra luggage. It is not because you have started eating a pea less than before that your body feels so weird when you start a diet. No. If you have any of these symptoms , trust me, your body has nothing to do with it. I am not a diet expert or an aspiring model, but I know what I am talking about. I have been through this outrageously pathetic stage of my life during my adolescence when I felt that cringing need to diet when some really jobless people called me a pumpkin, literally. I was too young to reason with myself. I started this tailored diet pl...
3 comments
Read more

Make Up and Me (Not Me)

They say people who don't know to dance have two left feet. Although, I might have two left feet myself, what is more interesting is I might actually have two left hands. Okay, I understand that's funny but here is why: If you are a girl or a boy or a boy who looks like a girl, you would probably know that it is a thing now to have a makeup blog or vlog or youtube channel in your name. I bumped into this world of cosmetics, beauty blogs and tutorials only a few months ago. For those who don't know about it, let me tell you, it is a crazy, ruthless and unbelievable world. Picture sourced from Google Heard of these? Snail slime masks, Placenta hair masks, Seaweed bathing creams, Microblading.... and endless other such insane stuff. These are insane but quite popular among beauty enthusiasts and they even swear by the benefits of such products. These are otherwise cringe-worthy products in my world. I use gramflour+tumeric face mask, Coconut oil hair mask and  a...
7 comments
Read more