For Navarathri this year, the black stone-tiled floor of her drawing hall is the chosen canvas of Srirangam resident Manghalam Srinivasan. The traditional tiered display of kolu dolls in the Mela Adayavalanjan Street residence has been replaced with nine kolams or floor patterns of various avatars of Goddess Ambal.
The self-contained iconography features Sri Bala Tiripura Sundari Amman, Sri Kanyakumari Amman, Sri Thirumanancheri Kokilambal Samedha Sri Kalyanasundarar, Sri Grahalakahmi, Sri Dhaanya Lakshmi, Sri Santhana Lakshmi, Sri Vageeswari Vani Saraswathi, Sri Saraswathi and Sri Syamala Devi.
“I thought it would be good to try something new this year,” Mrs. Manghalam told The Hindu . “I have done nine paintings, one for each day of Navarathri, and each around 4 feet in height,” she said.
The 13 x 26 feet hall floor is completely covered with the kolams, making for an unusual talking point this festive week.
Mother’s methods
“As a young girl, I used to be fascinated by my mother’s kolams. And every day, she used to let me and my three younger sisters practice drawing kolams in front of our house by dividing the patterns into sets of two or four lines. But in the end, I am the only one who still follows her methods,” said Mrs. Manghalam.
Using nothing more than cheap coloured powders mixed with a little rice flour for the white base tints, Mrs. Manghalam creates elaborate designs that she has picked up from a year-long government certificate course in Thanjavur painting and her own experiments in temple drawings. Separately, the homemaker also undertakes orders for Thanjavur paintings on a variety of subjects.
“I have always liked drawing kolams, and have never preserved examples of my work. I got noticed outside my house only after my daughters Aishwarya and Bhargavi created a Facebook page featuring my designs,” said Mrs. Manghalam.
The photographs of thousands of kolams made by Mrs. Manghalam and her mother Saroja Krishnamoorthy have attracted clicks from all over the world. “My kolam of ‘Surya Bhagavan’ attracted at least six lakh likes. I make a topical kolam for all festivals. Now, because of the interest in my Facebook page, I also upload new ones that I try out just for my page visitors,” she said.
Mrs. Manghalam’s husband S. V. Srinivasan, General Manager, Outsourcing, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited, films the kolams as they are being drawn and makes them available on YouTube as mini tutorials.
In-house fan
But her biggest fan, said Mrs. Manghalam, is her father-in-law S. K. Vasudevan, a drawing master and a Tamil scholar.
“From buying the art materials to seeing my first attempt at any drawing, it is my father-in-law who stands by my side,” said Mrs. Manghalam.
First guru in temple-style anatomy drawing
“His elder brother S.K. Jagannathan was my first guru in temple-style anatomy drawing. I still follow his technique to draw a figure of Goddess Akhilandeswari that I learned from him as a schoolgirl.”
This year’s Navarathri kolams will be on the floor until Vijaya Dasami.
Then, perhaps symbolic of life itself, the patterns will be erased and powders will be swept up for disposing in the Cauvery river.
“This is a sacred art that gives me a lot of emotional strength and happiness,” said Mrs. Manghalam.
To see more of Mrs. Manghalam’s work, visithttps://www.facebook.
com/ Mangalam.Art.
gallery/
