In Tamil Nadu, the vaasal or threshold of a house is an integral space where internal and external energies converge, holding the potential for luck and prosperity. It is the juncture between home and beyond, and where as part of their morning ritual, women of the household draw kolam: symmetric patterns of dots, lines, curves that connect tradition, habit and hope.
Amidst vague and conflicting theories on the origins of kolam, the most certain, ancient historical evidence of its existence is in Tamil Sangam literature (300 BCE to 300 CE). It is believed that kolams were drawn during the ‘brahma muhurtham’ or the time of the day when the gods descend and thus, the practice was reserved only for Brahmin women. But over the centuries, Tamilian women across cast have staked claim to the art – in their own persistent, inventive ways.
The time devoted to each kolam depends on the size and complexity of the patterns. Once they have bathed, the women bend from the waist and deftly pinch and drop white powder (traditionally made of rice powder or rice flour) to make the daily kolam. With a design envisioned in their minds, they work quickly with little hesitation, and enter their homes only when the design is complete.
Beginning a day with kolam enables a sense of control – a fresh canvas. She, the artist, needs just enough focus to place those dots and lines; the perpetual buzz of pending decisions and tasks fades away for a few precious minutes. Though she knows her work will be trampled upon within hours to leave a powdered blur that must be washed again, she commits to perfection.
Most women learn this art from their mothers, aunts or grandmothers, but my mother never did. Dispatched to boarding school at the age of nine, she grew up in a convent school tucked away in a distant hill station, far removed from her five siblings, and by extension, the traditions of her family – one of them being the morning kolam.
When my parents moved back to India after living in Dubai for nearly thirty-five years, my mother looked forward to adorning the vaasal of her own home with kolam designs—a way to connect with memories of the women she did not get to spend enough time with, to honour their legacy, even if not through her own hands.
And so, prospective domestic workers face the unexpected question: “Do you know how to draw kolam?” They are invariably surprised, unused to being entrusted with a responsibility that is usually reserved for the woman of the house. My mother doesn’t care about their caste or religion—all she wants is a beautiful design gracing the entrance of her home, drawn with care.
Her outsourcing of this ‘sacred’ duty makes me think about the preservation of traditions in a society that uses culture itself to perpetuate inequality. Kolam, a globally recognized heritage form, carries with it the weight of patriarchal, caste and class baggage. A woman’s Tamil-ness was (and still is in certain orthodox communities) assessed by how diligently she performed the daily ritual, the intricacy of patterns and speed of drawing. In her article on ‘Tracing the significance of kolam’ published at Madras Inherited, Neeraja Srinivasan writes, “Caste-based discrimination seeps through Hindu rituals like kolam-making, largely because the custom itself stems from an idea of separating the pure from the impure.”
Here we are, at a different threshold. As an art form that symbolizes the ephemeral, kolam presents the opportunity to make the choice to erase and draw with different rules. How can we preserve and progress? Why does the labour of protecting a home’s exposure to good and evil fall upon women only? Can she retain the symmetrical elegance and discard the idea of kolam being a cultural imperative? And most importantly – who gets to define the idea of purity in people and spaces?
I am inspired by the few brave women who are reimagining kolam as revolutionary and economic tools. In 2019, to protest the government’s Citizenship Amendment Act whose laws openly discriminate against India’s Muslims, five women in Chennai drew kolam with the words – “No to CAA, NRC”. Women entrepreneurs in Tiruchirappalli created large kolam maps of roads and existing shops in neighbourhoods to identify opportunities for small businesses, using location as a success marker. Like them, my pragmatic mother has consistently—and unknowingly—reimagined religious and cultural traditions in our home. I watched her tread delicately between holding on to heritage practices, and showing her daughters that they could resist imposed family values. In a world where devotion to faith can easily turn into intolerance, we learnt to be critical of ancestral wisdom. Watching her surrender the vaasal to our domestic worker so she may use it as her own canvas makes me appreciate a custom that matters most to my mother – respect. As a people entrenched in caste and class disparity, to rupture the lines between who cleans the rooms, kitchen, and toilets and who decorates the threshold is a subtle act of rebellion.
The daily kolam at my parents’ house also acts as a barometer of our domestic worker’s mood and schedule. Colourful flowers with stems and leaves—a no-brainer. Six dots with concentric ovals snaking through them—she came late. Conjoined peacocks with multitude of colours—evidence of a good mood. When the granite floor is blank, I know that is her day off, a quiet reminder of our dependence on a kind, hardworking woman who has a home of her own.
Our lack of kolam skills renders us complicit in the slow demise of an ancient art form. It is captivating to watch how dexterously and gracefully women draw kolam. Their sharp minds calculate space and connections in seconds; they glow with satisfaction at their own creations every single day. What good are my mother’s lessons if I can’t experience this ambivalence of being critical of a practice, but also wishing to be a part of it?
Religion and culture try to keep us bound to rules and superstitions to give us a sense of control over fate – a human desire in chaos. Patriarchal and casteist gatekeepers convince us that it is disrespectful to question or change traditions. But we can choose: to question what’s always been done, form our own interpretations, reject customs that offer no meaning or adapt them to align with values that matter to us.
I don’t believe my mother expected me to gain such insights from her habit of delegating kolams. It is just one of many accidental lessons acquired from watching parents when they think you’re too old to learn anything further.
The vaasal of their home will continue to be protected by good intentions. After all, my mother is a woman who loves her rituals, but never at the expense of her humanity.
(Image source – Thamizhyatri)
