Come Margazhi , and Anuradha Suresh braves the cold and starts for work at five in the morning. The walk to her workplace isn’t hard; all it takes is climbing down the stairs from her residence on the third-floor to the ground floor. But the work is real hard.
It involves her toiling for about five hours in the morning, even as she watches dawn break, and the arrival of the newspapermen, milk delivery boys and enthusiastic early morning joggers. Most of them peer inquisitively when she’s at work outside Subramanya Apartments in Abhiramapuram — taking pains to etch out a grand kolam , one that she hopes will stay on till the end of the day, despite the many cars and two-wheelers that pass by.
The kolam provides immense happiness to this homemaker, who resides in a joint family. Suresh has been drawing the traditional kolam every single morning for more than 25 years outside her residence, but the last 10 years — when she started sketching them just outside her apartment premises during the Margazhi season — have resulted in a lot of attention from the neighbourhood.
“Many a passer-by stops his/her morning routine to see what I am up to,” she says, and adds, “It is very heartening to see even complete strangers stop by and say thank you for keeping this tradition alive.”
She attributes a dual purpose to the traditional practice of sketching a kolam . “It’s a great form of exercise, and it’s one of those things in our culture that needs to stay on, especially during the month of Margazhi ,” she feels.
This month, most of Suresh’s afternoons and evenings are spent in planning for the next day’s kolam . She mostly plans out the traditional kolam , devoid of any colour. “I sometimes try to work on specific themes — like drawing out a lotus, or a setting at a temple,” she says. On festival days, she plans out special designs. “I’m currently working on a theme that I’ll sketch during Pongal,” reveals Suresh, who ensures that she uploads a picture of the kolams on Facebook every day, “People have asked me why I spend so much time and effort on this, but it gives me a lot of happiness and peace of mind. I spend a lot of time on it to ensure that the finish is perfect.”
An art that she learnt during her childhood days back when the city was still called Madras, it is helping Anuradha keep herself occupied in between her everyday chores as a homemaker. Her needs for her morning task are quite basic — a sack of kolam maavu and semman that she sources much before Margazhi and carefully stores in a shed in her apartment complex . “My family members have been a huge pillar of support,” she beams. So have her friends in the apartment. Adds Suresh, “Isn’t it rare to see complexes giving such space for a traditional art form?”
