Kolam - Creating A Design at your Doorstep

This is the one I drew for Monday.

This one I drew for today - Tuesday.

Kolam is a Tamil word for drawing a pleasing design in front of your doorstep. In the northern India it is called Rangoli in which color powder is used. In one of my older posts I had written why a kolam is drawn.

It gives me a lot of pleasure to draw a design every morning. Its a ritual among us to decorate our front yard through a kolam which is drawn with fine rice flour or lime powder or a chalk piece.

I asked a mason to fix a black granite slab at the doorstep just so that the kolam looks brighter than when drawn on a mosaic floor.

Early mornings are reserved for sweeping, mopping and creating an interesting design on the wet black granite slab with a wet chalk. This gives me a brighter result.

I don't plan any design. As I draw it takes shape. It is a free hand though designs which are traditional are repeated on certain days.
I go by the numbers or dieties attached with the navagrahas - the nine planets for each day of the week.

Sun - sun-like spikes design or a sunflower for Sundays.

Moon - on Mondays - usually a design based on the lotus or any beautiful flower or any beautiful pattern as moon is a personification of the goddess mother.

Mars - a personification of Lord Subramania-muruga-arumugam. I draw a six-sided pattern on Tuesdays. See the photo for today's kolam has a six-petalled design.

Mercury - Anything goes for Wednesday but as it is the planet which represents Lord Vishnu, whose consort is Maha lakshmi, it could be about flowers.

Jupiter or Guru for Thursday - Anything goes for this day so I give myself total freedom to draw any fancy design.

Venus on Friday. It's got to be very traditional like a lotus design or a square plus some curves on top to make it attractive.

Saturn on saturday - 8 is the number associated with saturn, my designs are basically ones in which 8 lines or dots predominates.

I have attached two pictures taken on Monday and Tuesday's patterns in this blog. Shall try to capture a picture each day and upload it for viewing. Though I am not an artist, I take pride in putting my best effort each day. It all depends on my mood that morning. And I just love the rural or rustic designs with simple lines and zig-zags with dots to highlight the pattern.


Cheers.

Mahalakshmi