Seeing 'Kolam' everyday morning was a part of my life as a young Tamil Brahmin Boy. My mother would get up early in the morning, clean the front yard and create wonderful kolams using 'rice powder' (and later 'kolam powder') every single day. The designs varied for she had a repertoire in her quiver. Ideally rice powder should be used for Kolam, the rice powder ends up as food for the industrious ants, thereby the lady doing her good deed for the day first thing in the morning. Drawing the kolam also gives tremendous finger dextirity to the womenfolk.
Though very short in stature, and quite fat, she used to bend down with ease, hold the vessel containing kolam mavu/powder in one hand and start first putting the dots, which were the guidelines for drawing the kolam. The geometrical precision and the calculations were amazing. This was an art passed down from the elder ladies to the younger ones generation after generation. Drawing a kolam was the ideal combination of both left and right brained activities. The calculation, number of dots to be put, the planning was all highly logical/sequential and hence left brained while the end result of wonderful patterns was the ultimate right brained activity.
I saw another aspect of Kolam when I worked in Tamil Nadu from 1989 for a decade. During the month of 'Maargazhi" (December 15 to January 15), women used to get up early in the morning, shivering with cold, and lays out wonderful colourful maargazhi kolams (they fill the traditional kolams with colour powders).- see above.If you happen to be in an agraharam, you an see colourful kolams after kolams in front of the rows of houses till the end, displaying the creative genius of the ladies of the house.
'Makkolam' (Kolam drawn using watery rice dough) is an integral part of any of the tamil brahmin functions, be it marriage, upanayanam, karthigai, ashtami rohini etc. - see above picture. Kalyana kolam requires tremendous co ordination, stamina and skill. 4-5 ladies will draw makkolam covering a significant part of the marriage hall - at times even 10 metres 10 metres. They plan as a team, divide the work into modules and integrate them in the end- akin to what a software development team does.
With families moving out of rural area to settle down in apartments in the cities and abroad, the art of drawing kolam is dying slowly amongst the upper middle class tamil families like mine. I doubt whether anyone in the family of my generation can undertake a makkolam for a marriage. This is being outsourced to professional mami's these days, who make a living out of this. Good for them. But the togetherness and teamwork I used to see when my mother and aunts drew kalyana kolam, late in the night prior to the wedding day, gossipping family matters even while doing the onerous 2 hour back breaking job, is conspicuous by its absence. Like many things which were integral to our culture, this too is dying slowly.
Why did I suddenly think of Kolams today? My mind was trying to find out an analogy for the work I do - Consultancy, which is all about putting the dots and then connecting them to create a wonderful pattern. A bit similar to Kolam, isn't it?
