So, I had been busy travelling in the 9 months of 2010 and avoided using internet and computer as much as possible for two reasons... the pain in the shoulder and the eagerness to look beyond work. I am sure that 2011 is going to relieve me of REGULAR work and give me a plenty of fun-work.
The urge to write is there always, but some specific pull should happen to make me sit typing away which happened today.
Yeah, I had drawn a mid-size kolam in front of our home in Hyderabad. Ok, the story has to start right from Sivagangai my birth place where I spent 10 years of my childhood.
Our house has a nice front-yard which also happens to be the street - but somehow, the space just in front of the house is exclusive to us. Around 6 am on normal days and around 5 am on festival days this portion would be cleaned and washed using water mixed with cow-dung. ( this information might sound something unthinkable to my grand daughter and to her daughter... hence, I might as well write all this for their sake ).
Then using rice flour and kolam podi designs would be drawn by one of us. I think we were given turns - yeah, the female-folks - I lived with 3 aunts, 1 grand mother, 2 cousins and 1 sister in that house - would do the kolam. The special days would be for the experts and the normal days were given to trainees by default.
Come Margazhi month, there used to be fierce competition amongst all the girls in our whole town. The information as to which street has maximum big kolams, which is very good, which is big but not so beautiful, which is the new one, which is the most complicated design etc. would be the topic of discussion amongst the girls in our school - at least in my class. Every house in every street, including that of the Christians and Muslims, is decorated with kolams.
Amongst the four of the girls in our house, my sister was the expert and the most enthusiastic one. Hence she would get the honour of drawing the kolam in front of the main house. There is a small place in the back-side which is above the gutter; and the place in front of the garden which is big but would be walked over by people and animals ( yes, cows, buffaloes, dogs) are the other two places that need to be decorated with kolams. Hence these not-so-important places would come to me and my other cousin Padma, who is THE EXPERT as of today. Those days, I think due to simple laziness she would allow me to do the Kolam in these places and just stand and watch me doing.
More of the childhood Kolams in the next blog.
For now, let me conclude saying that the present apartment that I live in Hyderabad has a nice place in the entrance where I can draw Kolam. Yeah, I have started; nobody to see except me and my driver who comes stamping on it to collect the keyes or to keep it back :-(
Art for the sake of art!!!
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