Lata's blog

At last, the much awaited Navrathri season is finally here!! I'd posted a short explanation about Navrathri here, which gave me a chance to showcase some pictures of the display of dolls, or Golu as we call it in south-indian homes.

Onam is the biggest festival of Kerala and it is observed by malayalees living in all parts of the world. This year, Onam falls on the 12th of September. One of the important feature of Onam is the making of Pookkallam also known as the "carpet of flowers", to honour the spirit of King Mahabali. Pookkallam is a Rangoli designed on the floor and the materials used are different kinds of flowers along with a few kinds of leaves. Water is sprinkled now and then on the finished design, to keep the flowers fresh.

I've always been a fan of the beautiful cream colored sarees that the ladies wear for the occasion. Ikolam has many members and friends who celebrate this festival, and we would like to invite them to share pictures of their celebrations (events/music/dance/boat race/games) and pictures of pookkallam.

Wish you all a happy and a prosperous Onam!

I have created a large collection of animated versions of kolam and rangolis over the years. I have been playing around with creating videos of the process of making kolams and just created couple of videos of some of the simple kolams and added them here: http://www.ikolam.com/video. These videos are hosted at YouTube; you could view them at the ikolam channel at YouTube too.

We plan on adding more videos in the coming months. If you have videos that you would like to share with all the kolam/rangoli fans, please send it to us.

Buddha Purnima (Buddha Jayanti) 2008
Buddha Purnima falls on the 20th of May for the current year - 2008.

Buddha Jayanti (or Buddha Purnima) is the birth anniversary of Lord Buddha. Lord Buddha is the founder of Buddhism. It falls on the full moon of the fourth lunar month (month of Vaisakh in the Indian calendar, either in April or May). On Buddha Jayanti, the buddhist monastries all over the world offer prayers and recitations of Buddhist scriptures at Buddha's altar throughout the day. People visit Buddhist temples/shrines and listen to the holy chantings, and also offer alms to the monks.

We would like to wish you and your family a very happy Sankrathi and Pongal. We also would like to take this opportunity to thank you once again for sharing your beautiful kolam pictures with all of our visitors and kolam fans. Hope you enjoyed browsing the site and got a chance to look at the designs sent by other kolam fans too. We at ikolam have plans to bring in new categories related to our culture and encourage you to post your comments and feedback in our site on an ongoing basis.

One of the new categories is going to be called " The Pongal Pot" and it would contain descriptions and photos of THE PONGAL POT that we use during the Pongal celebration. Please send us a picture of your pongal pot to showcase in our site. It could be a simple picture taken before your celebration or it could be a picture taken actually during the "overflowing of the pongal ---PONGALO PONGAL!!". Just imagine taking a glimpse at others' pictures sent in by our members. We're sure it would be lots of fun to look at them even when the pongal season is long gone.

Thank you for your wonderful support and encouragement.

Pongalo Pongal!!

Here's wishing you all a very happy, healthy and prosperous 2008!

Wishing all our members and visitors a very merry christmas!

There is going to be a National Muggu Mahotsavaalu on Sunday the 16th of December 2007 in Mauritius. There is also going to be a kolam workshop and a muggulu/kolam competition. We would like to convey our best wishes to our site-members and fans who are participating in this competition. I hope they share there experience and pictures with all of us here at ikolam.com community. May the best Muggulu team win!!

Wishing all our Jewish visitors a very happy Hanukkah.

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