KOLAMS: GEOMETRIC ART

I was inspired to write this post because it is that time of the year that I feel the longing to visit back home, now that it has been almost three years since I visited last. Also because, we just celebrated the Tamil New Year's day and missed all the festivities of being back home with family and friends. I know this post is strictly not in line with the homeschool resource theme this blog was originally started on, but hey, this is very much into homeschooling theme and part and parcel of 'our' homeschool life here; and may be this way you guys will see a small 'not so known side' of southern India---Chennai and its streets:)

In Tamil Nadu it is known as Kolam, but as Rangoli in many parts of India. It is also known as Muggulu in Andhra Pradesh, Rangavalli in Karnataka, Poovidal or Pookalam in Kerala, Chowkpurana in Uttar Pradesh, Madana in Rajasthan, Aripana in Bihar and Alpana in Bengal.

Kolams are traditionally drawn with bare fingers with predetermined dots using rice flour or lime stone powder by women in the front of their homes, on the floors cleaned with cowdung water mixture. Kolams are also drawn in front of the pooja rooms , temples and prayer halls. On festive occasions, the kolams are drawn with rice powder and water paste rather than with just the rice flour. This tradition of drawing kolams is passed on from generation to generation. Kolams are drawn for many reasons. For one it is aesthetically pleasing and welcoming. It is believed that it would feed small critters, ants and birds. It is also believed that it would bring in good blessings from Goddess of Prosperity. Bending down to be able to draw the dots and patterns before the sunrise is also a considered as a form of a breathing and physical exercise according to elderly members of the society. It requires a lot of concentration and focus to be able to draw one, much like any art, at the same time, it is a joyful process, a labor of love. It is a matter of pride in women to be able to draw complex patterns of kolams.

This ritual of drawing kolams early morning in front of the homes takes place in every home irrespective of the neighborhood, their wealth, education background or religion. These kolams can be simple elegant to dramatic complex patterns. And on special occassions, these kolams are decorated with spectacular colored powders and/or with flowers. And come festival season, whether it is Diwali or New Year or Christmas or Pongal, there are kolams designed just to depict those celebrations, with fire crackers designs or Christmas star designs or Pongal pot designs. And any home would depict these celebrations in their front yards by means of kolams welcoming the festivities and wishing good wishes to everyone that passes by on the street.

Drawing kolams was one of my favorite things to do while growing up back home, especially during Marghazi months(mid Dec to mid Jan). There are several types of kolams, Pulli kolams,(drawn with dots), Line kolams(drawn with just lines), Neli kolams(patterns of curves and quite complex). The Pulli kolams (kolams with dots) can be iddukku pulli(interlaced dots) and ner pulli(straight dots). Look at the beautiful designs of pulli kolams here. We (the girls and women in the family as well as neighbors/friends) would join together in making huge designs of kolam using rice powder on our street front yard. The designs we would come up with would be so big that it would run all the way across the street from each of our front yards. First the design is drawn and then we would add colors very carefully making sure the colors pop and complement each other. We would have had the precise designs made, practiced on paper, and all colorfully mapped months ahead of time. And, we would try to be secretive about our designs with an underlying friendly competition with the street mamis(aunties/neighbors). During Marghazi months, we would gather to do the kolams at late night times, so that we can avoid having to rise early morning hours in the cold season. Or some would wake up in the early mornings to just do some touch ups of colors on their kolam designs.

It was a gala gathering of neighbors drawing kolams and chattering and gossiping away, while trying to keep the biting mosquitoes at bay:) The street/floor was cleaned and prepped with cow-dung mixture each day by the maid for me to lay the designs on, so that each of white dot of rice powder of the kolam design would pop up against the dark background(or else I used to pick a fight with my poor maid and would redo the prepping work:). To come up with the best new design for each day of the month of Dec would be the biggest challenge of all. But this developed an appreciation for art, an appreciation for Indian heritage, a friendliness and team spirits amongst the neighbors and a lots of growth in learning and sharing of talents and a great feeling of having done /created something really wonderful. Each family would also own a kolam notebook, and would refer and borrow designs from neighbors, or friends or even magazines. The collection would grow each year, each new season and one would always hunt for novel designs and this came as part of my marriage give-away from my mom, which I cherish dearly. Some very artful women in my street always created their own designs with wonderful imaginations or the techie males or females in the household would use the computer programs to create the fanciest ones for their families. This is the Chennai I grew up in and even these days those rituals are still preserved in my part of town where I grew up, which lets my kids take a small part of the experience whenever we visit back home.

Do I draw kolams here? Ofcourse I do. Every opportunity we get, we draw kolams. Every festivities in our home begins with kolams and that is one of the best part of homeschooling because we take the time in enjoying every little thing that is part of our culture:)

A few of the Kolam blogs and sites I enjoy:

• Raji's Blog on Kolam festival
• Kamini's Tales of South India
• Marghazi Kolam Kolahalam(21 days of marghazi kolangal)
• Marghazi musings- of Aparna's Blog
• Check out some kolams here from Kamala's Kolangal
• Satya's kolams is also a wonderful site
  
• Kamat's Potpourri Kolam pages has more than just Kolams
  
• Crossing cultures and maintaining tradition check out the article
  
• Kolam: a poem
• Arts and crafts and Traditions: Kolams Resource lists and gallery
• Painted Prayers: Rangoli designs
• Enchanted Living Arts
• Art on the street
• Kolams, rangolis and more blog just for kolams
  
• My own window some great pics and info
• My pretty kolam floor a swedish blog
• Kolam part of Brahmanism from Agraharam
  

Learning sites:

• ikolam is a wonderful site wherein one can learn to draw kolams and rangoli. There are wonderful designs for beginners to advanced to draw and practice. Free membership.
• Pitara: Kolam craft activity for kids; step by step instructions
• Kolam : an artwork of south India
• You Tube: Kolams videos of kolams
  
• Learn all about Kolams here History of kolams, procedures, types, meanings, festival kolams and much more
• Kolam dot patterns and explanations here
• Some advanced kolam designs here
• Sikku Kolam with source code
  
• A random kolam generator You specify the dots for the patterns to form
• Kolam: Traditional drawings of South India Nice site with some details about kolams, dot arrangements, and some links.

Traditional Kolam of Symmetry Geometry
with red brick powder (Kavi) bordering the design

Related sites:
Math, Art and Science of Kolams. Some interesting sites and information. Just poke around these links for some interesting math, geometry, art learning. May be you will find somethings inspirational and you may look at things in a new light:)

• Braids and curves: math
• Math, Algorithms, and Braids in Kolam
• The Kolam Tradition: American Scientist
• Raghavachary's tile based kolams
• Slideshow from Raghavachary
  
• Gymnasium for the brain: dots and kolams
• Kolam the geometric figure
• A research paper: Extended Pasting Scheme for Kolam Pattern Generation
• Kolam square and the math
• Kolams explained through Fractal Geometry
  
• Mathematical modeling of kolam patterns
• Teaching math through art of kolam
• Kolam figures, braids and more
• Magic square and kolam
• Solving Infinte Kolam in Knot Theory
• Nitus a drawing program kolams, anklets of Krishna and more math and drawing
• Round Dice Some interesting connections of different cultures, traditions and kolams
• Sand Drawings and Gaussian Graphs a research paper by Eric Demaine
• Knot related patterns in Folk arts A topology paper
  

Books:
Mathematics Elsewhere: An Exploration of Ideas Across Cultures by Marcia Ascher Ethnomathematics: A multicultural View of Mathematical Ideas, Marcia Ascher

Kolam books:
42 Indian Mandalas Coloring Book by Monika Helwig and Wolfgang Hund Stencils South India (Ancient & Living Cultures Series) by Esther Grisham

Some kolam books below:

Kolam Books


Kolam note book


Kolam Book

Simple kolam patterns

Some pictures of Kolam below:

Pongal Kolam


Christmas Kolam

Traditional Kolam

Traditional Kolam

Kolam Festival in Chennai


Chuzhi Kolam

And if you are looking into an Ancient India or study of India with your kids, you may want to check out these lessons on the traditions and cultures of southern India, which touches upon Painted Prayers-Kolams.

Lesson plans 4th grade regarding kolams
Rickshaw Girl by Mitali Perkins lesson plans
Kolam, a Living Art of South India a lesson plan for 6-8 but can be easily adapted for other grade levels. The story on Kolam below is in this lesson plan. I liked it so much that pasted it here(see below).

MEENAKSHI'S Magic Hands
By Santhini Govindan

Meenakshi knew that patti used only home made rice flour because she was worried that the kolam powder available in shops might contain chemicals. SANTHINI GOVINDAN tells you a magical story!

Eight year old Meenakshi thought that there was something magical about her grandmother. It was not that her 'patti', as she called her looked very different from the other grandmothers who lived in her neighborhood in Chennai. No, not at all. She too wore colourful cotton nine yards sarees, and applied kumkum in the parting of her carefully oiled, silky white hair. Of course, she also had a very comfortable lap that Meenakshi just loved to sit on, and a soft melodious voice that sang songs and told the most interesting stories. These were wonderful things, and Meenakshi enjoyed them very much, but they were not magical things.

Patti's magic lay in her long, fingers, and Meenakshi just loved to watch them every morning when patti drew the 'kolam' on the ground outside their front door. It was a ritual that Meenakshi never tired of watching, and she made sure that she never missed it each day before she went to school. She always got up on time, and never dawdled in the mornings. After she had bathed and said her prayers, she would quickly eat her breakfast of hot idlis and sambhar, before hurrying outside. Patti would already be there, and Meenakshi would squat on her haunches beside her, and watch patti's quick, graceful movements with avid interest.

First, patti would wipe the ground carefully with a cloth to clear away all the dust. Then she would wash the ground with water, and while the ground was still wet, she would reach for the tin that held the fine rice flour with which she 'drew' the kolams. This was the part that Meenakshi liked the best.

Holding a pinch of the rice flour between her thumb and her pointer, patti would start to 'draw' the kolam by sprinkling the powder on the ground carefully to form fine lines. Since patti knew hundreds of traditional kolam patterns, no two that she drew were exactly alike. She started each kolam differently too, every morning. Sometimes she would mark out a set of dots or 'pulli' on the ground, and carefully join them up in a prearranged sequence. Meenakshi just loved to watch the kolam pattern slowly unfold before her eyes as the dots were linked together. But one days when Patti did not set out the 'pulli’ and decided to draw a free hand kolam, Meenakshi would be really excited. "What are you going to draw today patti?' she would ask eagerly. "Wait and see!" patti would say with a twinkle in her eyes.

And as Meenakshi watched with rapt attention, patti's nimble fingers would create the most beautiful pictures with the rice flour. Patti knew how to draw flowers and leaves, mangoes, and winding creepers. She could draw elephants, long necked peacocks and flying birds. Patti's kolams were full of geometric shapes like circles and stars and squares too, and to Meenakshi, it was incredible that patti could draw such perfectly proportioned figures without using a pencil or a ruler or an eraser.

All the lines that patti drew were always very straight and neat and evenly spaced, and it was no surprise therefore, that patti's kolams were best in their neighborhood. "I'm sure that you have magic in your hands patti," Meenakshi would often say seriously as she admired one of patti's kolam's. Patti would laugh delightedly. "It's not magic, dear. It all comes from practice! I've been drawing kolams every morning for years now. Someday, you too will be able to draw the perfect kolam! "Oh I wonder if that day will ever come," Meenakshi would reply doubtfully. "Even though I practice so much, my kolams never turn out the way I want them to!"

On days when she had a holiday, and did not have to hurry off to school, patti always gave Meenakshi a little tin of rice flour, and allowed her to practice drawing kolams in a corner of their compound. This made Meenakshi extremely happy, but even though she concentrated very hard, her hand often shook so much in excitement that the rice flour usually slipped through her fingers clumsily, making crooked and uneven lines. Or worse still, it fell into an untidy blob right in the middle of the kolam pattern. But patti never let Meenakshi get disheartened. She would tenderly wipe away the hot tears of disappointment that sprang so readily to Meenakshi's eyes, and give her a big hug. And then she would tell Meenakshi stories of how she had learnt to 'draw' kolams when she was a little girl decades ago. Meenakshi would cheer up as she heard how patti's fingers too, had trembled nervously when she had started to draw kolams initially. But later on, patti had become such an expert at drawing kolams with her steady and artistic hands that she had won many kolam competitions held in her village.

Meenakshi also loved to hear patti describe some of the really special kolams that she had made through the years, during festivals like Diwali and Pongal, and on special occasions in the family."I think I drew the most beautiful kolam after you were born," patti would say to Meenakshi. "It was full of pictures of flowers in full bloom, and had an intricate border. It came out so perfect because I was so very happy that day. I had just got the most beautiful little granddaughter!" "Why do we draw kolams outside our front door every day?" Meenakshi asked patti curiously one morning as she sat beside her.

"Well, kolams make the entrances to our home more beautiful, and they are a sign to all those who visit our home that they are welcome," said patti with a smile. "And since all our kolams are made of only rice flour, they help to feed ants and other tiny creatures as well. But of course, you know all about that." Meenakshi nodded. She knew that patti used only home made rice flour for all her kolams because she was worried that the kolam powder available in shops might contain chemicals that would hurt the delicate throats of the little ants and birds who came to eat from it everyday. Patti had also told her about the Hindu tradition of being kind to all gods' creatures, no matter how tiny they were.

"But one of the most important reasons why we draw kolams outside our homes is because we hope that they will attract the attention of Goddess Mahalaxmi, the Goddess of wealth if she happens to be passing by this way." "Do you think she will ever come to our street and pass our home one day?" Meenakshi asked seriously. "Of course," patti replied promptly, "But you never know when the Goddess will come a calling! So we have to be ready for her all the time! And if she sees a beautiful, carefully drawn kolam outside our front door when she passes by, she will be so happy and pleased with us that she will step right into our home and bring lots of good luck and blessings with her!" A few weeks later, when Meenakshi woke up, she found that her home was in turmoil. Patti had suddenly fallen ill during the night and would have to be admitted to the local hospital. Meenakshi's mother told her anxiously, "Appa and I have to go with patti, so you will have to get ready to go to school by yourself today." Meenakshi was bewildered by this unexpected turn of events, and she got dressed very slowly. Then, as she sat down quietly to eat her breakfast alone, she suddenly realized that there would be no running outside after her meal was over to watch patti that day! And there would be no 'kolam' drawn outside the front door either. Meenakshi sucked her breath in, in utter dismay. Then she pushed her plate away in agitation, and hurried outside. The ground outside the front door was bare and empty. Meenakshi's eyes filled with tears as she stared at it and thought sadly of dear patti who was ill. Then as she turned away in dejection, a thought suddenly struck her. What if the Goddess Mahalakshmi were to pass by their street that very day? She would peep in through the gates of all the houses, and when she came to Meenakshi's house she would find no welcoming kolam at the entrance. The Goddess would not know that patti, who had drawn the most exquisite kolams at the doorway for years, had suddenly fallen ill. Instead, she might think that the people who lived in the house were lazy, and she would go away without stepping in! Meenakshi was absolutely horrified at this thought, and she knew at once what she had to do.

She ran to fetch patti's tin of rice flour. With a sense of urgency, she quickly wiped and washed the ground just like patti did, and then she dipped her hand into the rice flour. How Meenakshi's fingers trembled as she held the first pinch of the rice flour between her thumb and pointer. Then she took a deep, steadying breath and visualized patti's steady and agile hands. Then Meenakshi began to 'draw' the kolam, copying the deft movements she had so often seen patti use. And slowly, very slowly, Meenakshi's kolam began to take shape. Its lines were a bit crooked in some places, and the petals of some of the flowers were of different sizes too, but when it was finished, Meenakshi sat back and looked at it with a huge smile on her face! Her kolam was not as perfect and symmetrical as patti's kolams were to be sure, but it was still very pretty! And as Meenakshi skipped along to the school bus stop a little later, she was quite sure that if the Goddess Mahalaxmi happened to stop by their doorway that day, she wouldn't be disappointed!

Meenakshi's patti had to stay in the hospital for a week. During that time, Meenakshi took care to draw a kolam outside her home every morning. And she found to her surprise and delight, that after the first two days, it became quite easy. Her hand did not shake in nervousness any more, and her fingers moved quickly and surely. She even began to try some of the more complicated patterns that patti was so expert at creating - patterns with long loops and swirls and deep curves. Then, one happy day, Meenakshi's mother told her that patti would be coming home from hospital the next day. Meenakshi was overjoyed - she had missed her patti so much. She woke up very early the next day filled with excitement. Not only was patti coming home, but she, Meenakshi had planned wonderful surprise for her. She would draw a magnificent kolam to welcome patti back home! How hard Meenakshi worked at that kolam! She filled it with stars that seemed to twinkle, flowers that seemed to bloom, and birds that seemed to be soaring on outstretched wings. Everything seemed to come out perfect because Meenakshi herself was so happy! Finally, patti came home. Meenakshi greeted her with an enormous hug. Patti looked frail and rather tired, and she held Meenakshi's hand as she walked slowly towards the door.

Then she saw the kolam that decorated the threshold. She stared at it for a few seconds and then she smiled. She turned approvingly to Meenakshi's mother. "I'm so glad that you did not forget to draw the kolam everyday!" Meenakshi's mother looked confused. "I was so worried and tired that I quite forgot..." she began to explain haltingly. "Patti, Amma did not draw the kolam everyday!" Meenakshi cried out loudly, "I did!" Everyone stared at Meenakshi in utter astonishment, and then at the lovely kolam that decorated the ground. "I didn't want the Goddess Lakshmi to go away from our house because there was no kolam to welcome her," Meenakshi explained. She looked hopefully at patti. "Do you like my kolam, patti? Isn't it pretty? I think it came out so well because I was so happy today!" Patti smiled at Meenakshi, and her eyes shone with tears.

"How could I not like your kolam dear? There's magic in your hands.”
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Interesting video that reminds me of Kolams
'Snakes, the movie'


Snakes from Cristóbal Vila on Vimeo.