jkmrao's blog

I have already displayed this pattern in a different manner at http://www.ikolam.com/node/7066?p=1930

Just thought of sharing a poem on rangavalli The original is in Telugu in the famous kanda metre.

జలమున వ్రాసెను గాలియు
లలితముగా రంగవల్లి రచనల నెన్నో
వెలిఁగెడు తరంగవల్లిగ

You're the sun that illumines my mind's firmament
You're the moon whose soft beams bathe me tenderly
You're the star of my eyes and the light of my life
You're my humble, but proud gift to the world forever

When you became my child, I became your mother
When you cried, part of me cried
When you laughed, part of me laughed
When you began to grow, I too began to grow

SAtavAhana hAla was supposed to have ruled the southern India in the early centuries of the Christian era. He is said to have written 700 poems in prAkRta. Unlike most poetic works of that era which dealt with gods and kings, these dealt with the themes of love, nature, union, separation, etc. I was trying to imagine how hAla would have written his poems in the modern era. Enjoy!

Here is a kannaDa song on neela kamala (blue lotus)

nIlakamala mAlegaLanu
ninage nAnu pONisiruve
nIla nIradAMga bArO
ninna mogava nanage tOrO
nIlakamala mAlegaLanu...

I stitched garlands of blue lotus for you
O dark coloured one
Come here and show your face

nIla gaganavannu nODi
ninna rUpa nenapu nanage
nIla girigaLannu nODi
ninna baNNa nenapu nanage

Where are the snows that were piled high touching the mail box?

Where is the white mantle that covered everything as far as the eye can see?

Where is the look of whiteness that adorned every nook?

The snows have melted, the cold is gone, the whiteness has evaporated!

Tender green shoots, lovely flowers of all hues

and the shrill cries of the song birds fill the scene.

For those who are interested, I am just giving an example of how I did the recently displayed paDikOlam (made on 20 Feb 2010). The accompanying picture will guide you. I have skipped some of the intermediate steps. Fig. 1 shows the symmetrical hilly pattern I created. This was rotated by 60, 120, 180, 240, 300 degrees and assembled on the outside of a hexagon as shown in Fig. 2. The same assembly is done inside of a hexagon in Fig. 3. Fig. 4 is a tear drop with dots etc. constructed separately beforehand. A hexagonal assembly of this is shown in Fig. 5.

Here is an article I wrote in telugu along with SrI brahmAnaMdaM in eemaaTa. It is entitled sA virahE tava dInA. It is on the eighth ashTapadi in SrIjayadEva's gItagOviMda with that name. Many of the readers may not know telugu. But there is an English translation of the ashTapadi in the text. More importantly there are links on the site for the songs sung by various artists as well as to external links marked in red. There are at least 15 versions of the same song sung in the same and different rAgAs in all styles - karNATaka, hiMdUstAni, fusion, etc.

Yesterday, I gave an account of the colouring problems we encounter when creating patterns that can be drawn on a hexagonal grid. Today I am going to deal with the problems we face when colouring basically a square pattern. These are evident in the enclosed picture.

Many a time, I commented about symmetry and colouring on this site. In fact, it is possible that a few people might have got irritated with me and for the sake of politeness kept quiet. Today, I want to give some examples for keeping symmetry in tact while colouring. You can see in the accompanying picture four smaller pictures.