A Thing of Beauty

Waking up a day after Diwali, I was bemused to find one of my fingernails in need of therapy. Then I quickly figured out the reason. All it did was pick some rangoli colors and fill them inside the design. Should I have used one of those color-dispensing tubes seen in some videos? Perhaps I should have used some easy patterns that didn’t require my leg muscles to react adversely to all that stretching. But the pain is always worth it.

I am not a great rangoli-maker. Whatever little I know comes from the holidays spent in grandma’s village in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh (now Telangana) in India. There, rangolis were mostly a tradition during Sankranthi, a harvest festival that comes in January. We children would follow the instructions of women folk in making rangolis with a special white powder. No early morning chills could deter us from filling the courtyard with our starter-level dots and designs. However, rangolis were made for Diwali in Maharashtra, where I had spent my early childhood. That association continues as I feel my Diwali incomplete without rangolis.

Like everything else in life, rangolis have been modernized. There are rangoli kits, stencils, stickers, many other tools to give novices a chance to indulge in the art of making rangolis. I saw a viral post where someone had shared his mom’s rangoli and a commenter asked how she made great patterns with so much precision. Well, now you know!

On the other hand, our elaborate rangoli, done under two pairs of watchful eyes of me and my daughter had a glaring mistake. We had colored one part in the wrong area. I noticed it a day later, but then ignored it as perfection is always given undue credit. Isn’t it uneven, squiggly, curvy lines, and non-geometric patterns that make nature and art? For me, it has to be hand-made, powder trying to flow effortlessly from the gap between thumb and index finger, even if it entails some mistakes and corrections. Old school, you can say! You could tell a great rangoli-artist from the thin-ness of the lines made with the white rangoli-making powder. Coloring is no big deal.

Needing no excuse to visit the driveway for past couple of days, I knew that the rains would be arriving on the fourth day. However, all it took for the elaborate rangoli to vanish into thin air was in fact some wind this morning. Rains will wash off everything, I know. But like chalk art, rangolis are joyful to make and behold despite their impermanence. As Keats said: A thing of beauty is a joy forever; even if it is now relegated to memory.