Perpetually Perplexed

The first one was 4-7-4 and I expanded and added 6 flowers. Second is 8-15-8 and third rangoli is 11 rows of 11.

This rangoli is 4 rows of 4 dots, followed by 4 rows of 12 dots and then again 4 rows of 4 dots.

Top right rangoli is 4-7-4. Bottom left is 8-15-8 and bottom right is 1-8-1

It is 1 - 8-1 . Simple but elegant (meant to be. though not in my hands :(  )

Bhala tumhare rangoli mere se behetar kaisa? Something similar is happening in our house since many months. It all started with me being jobless and thinking of drawing rangolis. I had this domestic help who would draw nice rangolis. And I have this neighbor who wants everything best in their house. When that girl left our house, I started downloading rangolis from net and drawing them. Learn one rangoli each evening and draw it next morning. Not to be left behind, my neighbor instructed the wife of watchman (a house is being constructed opposite to mine. That is another looooong story) to clean the entire road with water and draw nicer rangolis paying her 300 per month just for that.  When that watchman woman is not around, watchman would call some body else from somewhere for that purpose. I became over obsessed with this. I would fight with spouse if I see his muddy foot prints next my beautiful design. I even went and bought 3 books with rangoli designs. (which were wa...

Well my previous post about rangoli was not my creation. Here is my rangoli. Quite down to earth, isn't it. But dear friends, I know few more designs. In fact 4 of them, which I learnt as a kid. Let us gimp it. I could not gimp them. Let us try painting them.  Here the left ones are 3-5-3 and right top is 1-4-1 and right bottom is 1-3-5-3-1 Left top most is 4-7 and so is top row second one. Bottom row, last one is 6X6 The remaining 3 are free hand I created them with paint. Let me tell you a  secret. Practice is all that requires and a little bit of experimentation. 

Rangoli is a design created from white powder in front of houses.(See wikipedia article) Ladies or maids will wash the court yard of the house early in the morning and put rangoli. Two days back, it suddenly flashed to me. What is the reason behind rangoli? Well, every person will have a creative itch. The poor women, who rarely go out of the house do not find any outlet for this. By putting a beautiful rangoli, they will satisfy their need to express themselves. So is the case of devara nama (devotional songs sung during pujas ) Good, our ancestors thought at least something about the needs of women!! Again that is my theory. If you ask some other people, they may say it is to welcome God and Guests to our houses.