The Kolam Experience

In typical South Indian tradition, drawing the kolam at the entrance of the house is a unique and decorative morning experience.

During one of my trips to Chennai, I got up early one morning to the chirp of the sparrow, cawing of the crows, the loud declaration from vegetable vendors and music from vividhbharathi. I sat outside in the verandah with a hot steaming cup of masala chai in my hand and enjoyed the kolam experience.

Thayi, the maid, whose name I bet no one knows, is known to everyone as Thayi. It was her forte to show off her classic talent and my experience with the ritual she followed every morning.

Thayi took up the broom with which she swept out the yard. The dust rose in plumes all around her and settled back slowly. When she was satisfied with the reorganization of the dust, she picked up the decrepit aluminum bucket half full of water, dipped a hand in it and moistened the ground with a sharp sprinkling motion. Her fingers jerked out a little dance, throwing silver arcs that shimmered briefly in the sunlight. Putting the dust to sleep, she called it. Then she bent over abruptly, straight from the waist, her thin buttocks in a shiny pink nylon sari sticking up into the air, and rapidly peppered the calmed earth with rice flour until there was a vast expanse of dots like stars on a dusty sky. She sat back on her haunches and allowed her imagination to swim in. The random dots became a pattern and Thayi leaned forward again, her face intent as she drew fine lines. Swirling, curling, frothing and furling. The lines swept from dot to dot, a fluid creation. It is a ritual she performed every morning.

On the dusty ground, was a kolam pattern, made of white dots and swirls, drawn by Thayi early that morning. A pattern made from rice flour to keep evil away from the house. Thayi had a whole array of designs in her memory - a certain order of dots laid out in strict, organized rows, all connected by sweeping lines. Without the dots the lines were meaningless, and when the dots left the design, there was only chaos. Within a few minutes, the kolam had lost its perfection, smudged by a dozen feet, from vendors to little children treading on it on their way to school, flung apart by the wind, carried away by ants. But tomorrow again, it would be there, a new design laid down by Thayi's fingers.