MUMBAI, INDIA, September 11,2005: It’s the festival season, and it’s time for the rangolis. The beautiful drawings and motifs, made of flower petals and gulaal, are going to be adding brilliant color to our lives till at least Deepavali now. The art of rangoli is old, but it hasn’t remained unchanged. Gone are the days when the word evoked images of vibrant motifs drawn by the women of the house in the courtyards of their homes. As the courtyards themselves have vanished in the time of matchbox apartments, the art of rangoli has reinvented itself to suit changed times. Organizations like Rangvalli Parivar and Sanskar Bharati have done much to popularize the art of rangoli in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Gujarat. They conduct monthly workshops, hold practice sessions and even take up assignments to draw rangolis. They also hold exhibitions and competitions just to keep alive the interest in the art form.
The results have been impressive. Not only has the rangoli bridged the gap between the floor and canvas, it has become three-dimensional. Portraits of celebrities, movie stars, cricketers, and scenes from Chhatrapati Shivaji’s life are a huge draw these days. And because size matters, mammoth rangolis as large as football fields are being executed. “A group of people is required to make a large rangoli. In cities, most people who live in flats hardly know their neighbors. So during special occasions like the Ganpati festival or Gudi Padva, activities like drawing rangolis bring them together,” says Ved Katti of the Thane-based Rangvalli Parivar. Rangvalli Parivar has members from all fields — doctors, bank officials, engineers, teachers, retired people, college-goers and of course, housewives who take up rangoli assignments in their spare time. For 28-year-old Prakash Patankar, a Navi Mumbai-based chemical engineer, drawing a rangoli is both about fun and being creative. “I was always interested in the art and when I heard about the professional workshop conducted by Rangvalli Parivar, I signed up. Now I also help with the workshop besides participating in rangoli exhibitions.”