⌘ It was aLL the 'KoLam' effeCt ⌘

Apparently, 'Kolam' is a tribal community of around 2,00,000 people distributed between Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, who speak the Dravidian language, also called 'Kolam'.

Being a Tamilian myself, yes, this was a new found information for me. And, no, I am not here to doodle about the Kolam tribes.

Reputedly, 'Kolams' are a cultural phenomena of interlaced, complex dot and line paintings drawn using rice flour or chalk powder. These are painted at the entrance of the house, on cleaned and graded ground surface sprinkled with water mixed with cow dung.

Yep! Two completely different meanings, all part of India. That's the amusingly admirable land of immeasurable diversity - a mini world within the world.

Moving on, these latter Kolams are predominantly a cultural inheritance of the South of India. Its cultural variations in form and practice can be seen as Rangoli in other parts of India like Maharashtra, Delhi, etc. In the South, primarily in Tamil Nadu, the entry is decorated with Kolam twice a day - morning around sunrise and evening around sunset. The significance being - (as described by the elders in the family and in various websites) - Co-ExiStence wiTh aLL bEingS. In other words, the rice flour is meant to serve as food for ants and birds, and the cow dung water sprinkler protects the house with its antiseptic properties. But Kolam practice is temporarily withdrawn at times when there is death in the family. (I have still not been able to bring about a logical reasoning around it though.)

Even now, every house, every flat and every apartment will welcome its outsiders with one of these interlaced surface designs, but with the cow dung water replaced with plain water. People hailing from this cultural background tend to follow this practice anywhere in the world that, the Kolam in front of the house has become a symbolic identity of the people of South India, mainly the Tamilians.

Indeed this unintentionally yet culturally formed identity ended  up proving helpful for an expat like me, in this foreign locality.

I had recently shifted to a new apartment in Mumbai. And whilst taking the stairs, I noticed a flat with this Kolam. My immediate reaction was, ha! a Tamilian! - an instinctive human nature to recognise anything familiar in a chiefly unfamiliar context. The forgetful me had locked myself outside, with the key happily hanging inside. Even the society watchman was unavailable at my time of emergency. Then what else! My immediate approach was to the residents of that fat with the kolam.

(He!He!) In fact, while I was mentioning to the 'Kolam' couple about the reason for my primary approach being them, they indicate that such a symbolic identity also works otherwise, especially in cases like when their laundry man chooses to not knock the door whenever he doesn't see the Kolam in front of the house for he equates the absence of Kolam to absence of inhabitants! ^_^