poTTaiyan :-)

Many a time, latAji asks people to introduce new books. Today I am going to do just that and also quote a few passages from that book relevant to kOlam. The name of the book is "Green Well Years" written by Manohar Devadoss published in 1997 by the East-West Books, Madras and the ISBN no is 81-86852-01-8. A few words about the author. Mano is a scientist-artist-writer combined into one. The illustrations in the above book were all by him. He is so good in line drawing in spite of the fact that he has no vision in one eye and the condition of the other eye too is not great. His wife mahema, paralysed below the shoulders because of an accident, is also an artist and a writer. The "Green well years" is about his boyhood in Madurai of the forties. If you are a person from Madurai like me, all the more reason to read the book. The house immediately to the right of Sundar's was occupied by a family from Cholavandaan village. The woman of the house was adept at drawing kOlams and Sundar enjoyed watching her draw. At first, she marked out a large number of dots. When she began to draw the kolam, it seemed to Sundar that the meandering line wandered aimlessly without rhyme or reason, making sudden turns and loops. But as she went on, a pattern emerged, neatly filling the space between the dots and ending with a beautiful symphony of dots and lines. The otherwise simple village woman was pleased to know that she had an admirer......... "Take a pinch between your right thumb and index finger," she instructed. Sundar did so..... Sundar did what she told him to do, but no delicate lines appeared. Instead, disjointed lumps of powder lay defiantly here and there, mocking him..... On hearing Sundar's interest in kolams, his mother ferreted out an old book of kolams she bought at pudu manDapam..... Sundar copied some of the beautiful ones and tried variations of his own. Over a period of time, for a relatively small matrix of 85 dots, Sundar tried different kolam patterns in his rough notebook. After much erasures and many corrections, he drew nine different ones. On a Saturday morning, Sundar proudly showed the results of his efforts to his neighbour. "You created these?'" she asked Sundar. "Yes, of course." replied Sundar. "How very interesting. Would you mind lending me your notebook?" So the kolam expert was going to examine his 'creations'. The following Monday morning, she returned the notebook to Sundar and asked him to look inside. There were pages and pages of new kolams, 54 more of them, all neatly drawn for the same set of 85 dots.... "I saw him draw, like a woman, a kolam in front of his house," Sethu said. One was very proud of the kolam tradition, only as long as it remained in the woman's domain. For the male of the species, to indulge in this was taboo..... "I am sure he won't deny it. He draws them for practice all the time. His rough notebook is full of kolams." "Dai, Sundara, you are a poTTaiyan, a kolam-drawing poTtaiyan." 'poTTaiyan' is the Tamil equivalent for 'sissy'; only, in Tamil, it is far more scathing. "He's a poTTaiyan. He's a poTTaiyan." Poor Sundar! I can identify with his anguish. I am enclosing a scan of the nine kolams drawn by Sundar, all the 54 later in the cafe, when it is not very active. Regards! - mOhana