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Published Date:  Nov 02, 2013 Copyright restricted. For reprint rights click here

Sanpada resident’s rangoli blog is a huge hit

Vijaya Saradha started her rangoli blog fully expecting the designs will come in handy during festivals. Her blog has 750 designs

dna correspondent @dnaSanpada

While rangoli is made using colourful powder, kolam (Tamil word for rangoli) is an ornate pattern made using rice paste; it is then bordered with red brick paste called kavi or chemman. Both kolam and rangoli have a different, but very ethnic look and drawing them on doorsteps is believed to bring prosperity. This Diwali, women will be on the lookout for beautiful but easily doable patterns. Well, you need not hunt for those old books to find your mother or grandmother’s chosen rangoli patterns. Sanpada resident, Vijaya Saradha’s blog (www.yourkolam.blogspot.com), has various kolam and rangoli designs that are simple, yet attractive. She started the blog in 2007 with the aim of documenting her designs and making them accessible for all. Slowly, she invited others to send their designs and uploaded them too. Today, there are over 750 designs in her blog. “After a tour to South India, my husband uploaded our travel photos on a blog and I felt it was an easy medium to not only document photos, but also make them available to all. That’s when I decided to open my blog with photos of the designs I drew everyday,” said Saradha. She used to mentally decide patterns by observing designs in bedsheets and sarees and incorporate them in her kolam. For Diwali, she has uploaded around 20 designs, not only of free-hand rangolis, but also of nelli or sikku kolam that are symmetrical knots drawn around dots (pulli). Although the nelli kolam is fairly easy to draw, many get confused as to where to begin and where to end. “For beginners, making nelli kolam can get a little tricky, and so they should first practice by drawing on a page using different coloured pens, so they understand the knots better,” suggested Saradha. She added that soon she will also put step-wise photos describing how to make the nelli kolam and other complicated designs. Her blog sees maximum traffic on festival days and since the biggest Indian festival is here, number of daily visits are very high. “Initially, I used to keep an account of how many visited my blog per day and naturally traffic increases drastically during festival time. And one of the pros of my blog is that not only my designs but designs of many people are made available, so there is no dearth of variety,” Saradha said. She confirms that having so many designs on her blog would have been difficult without so many contributions from unknown, but passionate people. Despite living in a joint family, Sarada manages to take time out for her activity. She said, “After everyone leaves for school and office, I have free time in the noon so that is when I do it. Besides if you are really interested in something, you will somehow find time to indulge in it.”