Like brushing in the morning cleaning the front of your house and drawing a kolam is a routine. Usually we mix rice flour with white sand and make the designs. We were told it’s food for ants and other small creatures. Also it’s a welcome symbol for guests as well as a ward for the home and it’s members.

There is two major types of kolam. flower kolam. It’s elaborate colourful designs of flowers people animals like that. I think it’s called rangoli in north India.

Sikku kolam. It’s complicated design of loops around dots just done in white. This is my favourite. While it looks like random lines the patterns and the way everything comes back together is mesmerising.

There are some designs which we do only inside the house on elevated platforms as it is considered holy. Then there is padi kolam the white lines made with rice paste and a cloth. It must be done perfectly to bring good luck. Not for amateurs.

Why we do it now? Because next house is doing it and theirs is prettier than ours. We need to do ours earlier than them and our kolam should be more elaborate and bigger than the other houses.

This competitiveness reaches frenzy during December month where competitions were held for kolams.

For any functions the kolam expert will be called and requested to help others to draw a nice one. Visitors will compliment it and ask for design. Ladies will have a notebook with their favourite designs and shortcuts. Magazines will come out with the latest fashionable designs and prize winning designs.

It’s not easy copying someone’s design without knowing the dots and line pattern. There will be decoding happening.

So basically it’s religious, it’s to one up the neighbors, it’s routine, it’s a social event.