Rangoli-85

Sankranti Rangolis-1

India as you know is a country of villages with agriculture as the main occupation. Many of our rural folk are dependent on agriculture and its allied branches like cattle, poultry etc. No matter what all our lives are still related to those roots-our villages and our lands either directly or indirectly.

Sankranti is a very important festival for all South Indians. Specially so for the people of Andhra Pradesh known as Andhrulu who speak the language of Telugu. This is basically a festival related to agriculture. We can call it as harvest festival. Crops like rice, sugar cane, pulses, turmeric, castor, groundnut, sesame etc which are grown in my state are harvested and the granaries are full of grains. Rural folk are now free for some time from all those chores related to farming and agriculture till next cycle of farming activities. So it is a good time for celebrations.

Sankramana means the Sun entering a Zodiac sign. Sun enters one Zodiac Sign and remains there for a month. He finishes his tour of all signs in a year. The month Sun stays in the Zodiac sign Sagittarius is considered very auspicious. This falls in middle of December and continues till mid January. This month as I have already written in one of my posts is known as Dhanur Maasam. 

During this whole month, though it is winter time and quite cold, women of the house get up very early  in the morning. They clean the front yards and sprinkle cow dung mixed in water. When it dries, elaborate and beautiful designs  are drawn using rice flour or lime stone powder. All this has to be completed before Sun rise.

These designs are known as Muggu in Telugu. These are drawn for Lord Vishnu (one of the Trinities) who is said to visit Earth (during this auspicious month) early in the morning   before Sun rise. It is believed that the beautiful designs, beautiful surroundings attract Lord into our houses. So while drawing these designs, one of the Lords 1000 names, or any Mantra is chanted silently. Some people also sing songs praising the Lord. 

There are some designs specially drawn during this month. These are known as Sankranthi Muggulu or Nela Muggulu. Nela means month and Muggulu means the designs. These designs have some symbolic meaning depicting the spiritual and religious meaning of this festival on one hand and reflect the various aspects of the life of the rural folk on the other hand.

I feel very sad that most of these designs have been lost. Over the past two decades or so, women are drawing those huge fancy designs using dots as these can be filled with colours. Traditional designs are almost now not known to younger generations.

However the traditional designs drawn on this occasion are drawn using lines. No dots are used. Long thin tube like structures made from tin, iron or bamboos have a set of holes (8 to 9 rows) in them. These are known as Muggu gottaalu (tubes). These are filled with the white powder(rice or lime stone) and rolled on the floor. Dotted lines are formed on the floor. These are joined to get the desired shape and design. Experts of these designs draw directly with out the help of these tubes.

These designs are intricate and geometrical in nature. Two four or more parallel lines are drawn to get square, rectangular,  triangles and circles. Then they are further modified or improved upon to form very beautiful and intricate designs. Thin lines and drawn as near to each other as possible spells out the expertise of the artist.  Straight lines and curved lines are used.

Designs contain geometrical patterns, twigs containing leaves, grain ears, creepers or vines, vegetables like pumpkin, onion, gourds etc, sun, moon, stars  animals or birds which are vehicles to Gods and Goddesses like, peacock, tortoise, snake, tiger, lion,  mats, chairs or thrones, chariots  are drawn to welcome and seat the Gods and Goddesses. These represent the daily life of the rural folk. 

The most important design is Chariot. I will write about each design as I post them starting from today. Here are some:

These are the horizontal or vertical parallel lines and a mesh of these two lines used as base for drawing designs.

Here four horizontal and four vertical lines have been used to draw a small design.

One more design using the horizontal and vertical lines.

Here I have drawn using the powder on floor. Drawing on paper is quite easier than on floor.

These are very basic designs. I have drawn very simple and small designs. You will be amazed to see how big and intricate designs are drawn using simple parallel lines. 

These designs are then decorated using red or yellow earth as well as flowers, turmeric and vermilion.

Practise these small ones. I am going to post more bigger and intricate designs in my next posts.