Here is a padi-kolam (a rangoli) that i did for my SIL’s house-warming function..
The four bent sides as seen in the pic below forms the basis of what is called the ‘iyengar’ padi-kolam- basically a rangoli that has no dots..
I love these variety of rangolis for two reasons- (i) it lets your imagination take the lead and you can extrapolate the design in any which way you want..(ii) the dots i make on the floor always end up like the world map and are never aligned the way it is intended to be! In most South Indian-brahm homes, you’ll find the dot-less rangolis during festivals or functions like weddings, house-warming etc.. They look best when done with wet rice flour (soaked and ground to a very thin consistency). The one you see here is with dry kolam-maavu made from washed and dried rice. They look nice with colors too..
life under the sky 
WHAT! you made that *gasp*
you are super duper talented lady *Salutes*…infact I think I do the dots kolam better…if I did free hand drawing of kolam..well..it would be like as if R did it…I think R does a better job than me in freehand
Lovely Vidya! Free hand is preferred to dots any day 🙂
Very imaginative, Vidya! 🙂
You won’t put ‘semman’ borders, is it? I’ve seen my mom doing that too for any function/festival/fridays. That’s why asked! 🙂
WOWOW! This is superb lady! I am super jealous of people who can draw rangoli so well. I am so bad at this, be it freehand or dots..:-(
wow…it’s awesome!
awesome Vidya.. gone are the days when I used to put kolam all 30 or 31 days of margazhi maadham that too with colors on few days… we (few girls from our street) used to do it in the night at same time with chit chatting… malarum ninaivugal…
This is just awesome. For me anyone who can make ragoli is super talented since I am useless at it.
Loved it.
the only kolam i know is star kolam(with some extensions)…this time i bought few kolam jaladais…all i have to do is put arisi maavu and jaalichify…kolam done!
That looks very pretty…I can draw only these 4 pulli and 8 pulli kolams..Kolam without pullis -This is the first time I am seeing. Its lovely
nice! i wish i could do “any ” kolam.. just stickers for me!
RM: Well.. err.. umm thank you.. let R do it then;)
Sri: danke..
S & S: Welcome! yes, semman adds a special charm to the kolams.. i forgot to click pics with semman:(
Uma: thanku (am walking with nose up in the air:))
Titaxy: thanks:)
Ani: I get all nostalgic during margazhi because even here, it isn’t as colorful as it used to be and living in an apartment limits such opportunities too:(
Comfy: Oi, this is nothing when compared to the pros.. i even feel guilty flaunting this when i see some rangoli blogs:)
Me: Look who’s here!! Its awesome that you can do a star and go one extra mile to add variety with ‘jaladais’!! Vasu… are you reading this!
Tharani: At one point I used to do plenty of 4-pulli kolams, but they used to look awful.. I avoid ‘pullis’ as much as possible for the reason mentioned in the post- a vertical line tends to horizontal angle;)
Bhargavi: Anything that works for each of us!
hey! where did my comment go?
this is beautiful
Sorry m-i-m! You seem to have posted your comment in the photo-full screen mode (the page shown when you click on the photo:)) It took a while for me too to figure that out because while you comment showed on the right side, it was not there on the post:) Thank you so much and welcome here:)
LOvvved this one, and am nw waiting to try it out 🙂
very nice… i love kolams and living in a flat gives no opportunity to show off! for us dot-less kolams also meant kanya-kolams… do you know any of those… basically they are made up of lines – all types! and do these fall into this category?