Amma and Raja Ravi Varma add a modern twist to this Kolam season in South India

The chanting from a distant temple was the only sound on an otherwise-still winter morning in Chennai. The holy Tamil month of music and devotion, Margazhi, had begun – and every day, in the early hours, song and prayer would lace the cool morning air.

At the crack of dawn, Anuradha Suresh stepped out of her apartment building at Alwarpet, in Central Chennai, with a tin of white powder in her hand. Settling down at the entrance of the building with the powder pinched between her fingers, she drew several rows of dots on the ground. In matter of minutes, a pattern emerged as her deft strokes of powder criss-crossed through the dots – joining some, looping around others – to weave the intricate Margazhi kolam that glistened in the morning sunlight a short while later.

Every year, from December 15 to January 15, Suresh, a homemaker, spends up to four hours every morning executing a traditional kolam, sometimes as large as six feet in diameter. “These thirty days are very special for me,” she said. “Although I take a long time with it, I feel happy while designing a kolam. I love working outside in the fresh morning air.”

Woven into the mathematical calculations that go into the art are countless beliefs about the significance of kolam-making. Apart from its aesthetic value, the ancient art of designing a kolam on the doorstep is believed to be a way to welcome a specific deity as well as general prosperity into one’s home. Since the powder, or sometimes a wet mixture, is made of rice flour, it is also considered to be food for ants and birds.

Even the symmetry of a kolam is explained through belief – a traditional design is composed of curved loops or geometric lines, each of which must be drawn to completion. Closing the kolam blocks evil spirits from entering the shapes, and symbolically, homes.

Although Margazhi is the month for designing large kolams, many households design them all through the year.

“Kolams are not just for beauty,” said Gayathri Shankarnarayan, a kolam expert who is popularly known as Kolam Gayathri. “Life is always filled with problems. The dots are considered the problem and the lines are the solutions.”

Shankarnarayan added that the kolam was often used to discover the state of happiness in a household. “In villages even today, if there is a clean bright fresh kolam at the doorstep, neighbours immediately step in to find out what the good news is,” said Shankarnarayan. “A confused mind cannot draw a straight line. Only if you have balance in your life, you can do so.”

This video tutorial makes a seemingly complex Margazhi kolam look relatively easy with just a few strokes.

Uma Raja, a kolam artist from Ramanathapuram near Madurai, found it hard to describe the extraordinary sense of satisfaction she felt during the morning hours of kolam art. “During Margazhi, between 4.30 and 6.30 am, i get a positive vibe while working,” she said. “It’s more than meditation or yoga. The entire day is so beautiful after that.”

Uma Raja said that as a homemaker, this was the time of the day when she was undisturbed and could give her work full concentration. “I enjoy hearing the bhajans from the nearby temple while making a kolam,” she said. “It’s a fantastic feeling.”

Although Raja’s Margazhi kolams involve special effort, she designs unique kolams every day and has been uploading pictures of them for the last 15 years. “I get inspiration from many other artists online,” said Raja. “In the past two years, I have made at least 850 unique kolams.”

Gayathri Shankarnarayan explained that every kolam bears the distinguishable style of an artist. Interestingly, different communities across Tamil Nadu have their own signatures too. “Most of the kolams which are drawn using dots, sometimes involve complex mathematical calculations, while designing and executing,” she said. “These are called the Karaikudi calculation kolams. The Chettiar community of Karaikudi, who design these, are known to be extremely proficient in mathematics.”

Shankarnarayan, who also judges a number of kolam competitions across the city, said there are traditional rules for kolam designing, which are frequently bent these days with the infusion of cultures. The traditional kolam, she said, is done using dots or free-hand drawings of floral designs. The only colour that is added is red-brick powder, to bring brightness to the design.

“But if you try to draw Modi, or try thematic designs of national security, gender issues or even demonetisation, it doesn’t exactly fall into the bracket of Kolam art,” she said.

However, there are many artists who have moved away from the traditional patterns to incorporate fresh styles.

For 51-year-old Mangalam Srinivasan, a homemaker in Srirangam, the month of Margazhi is when she is happiest. Though she began making kolams using traditional designs, she is inspired by pictures seen on the internet, and often works for more than eight hours to turn them into kolams.

Seeing their mother’s talent, Srinivasan’s daughters created a Facebook page called My Mom’s Art Gallery, where they uploaded pictures of her Margazhi kolams. The page currently has over 55,000 likes.

Srinivasan’s 70-year-old mother Saroja Krishnaswamy is also a kolam artist who works with traditional designs.

“My grandmother is actually even faster than my mother at making kolams,” said Aishwarya Srinivasan. “I would often be amazed by her. When it comes to a circle or square, she would draw it so perfectly. Unlike in a notebook, it is not easy to draw it on the floor. But my grandmother is a perfectionist.”

Aishwarya Srinivasan said that her mother’s art is completely different from the traditional style, and fits in with the trend of kolam-making that is in vogue these days. Their Facebook page has become so popular, she said, that they were even recognised by some fans at an airport in the US.

But Srinivasan is so immersed in her art that she is completely oblivious to the fandom around her work, according to her daughter.

“Before Margazhi starts, she tells us not to disturb her during the month,” said Aishwarya. “Margazhi is the time when she is completely devoted to God, through her kolams. She said that her finds meaning in her birth only through this.”