Kolam

Kolam is the threshold drawing made at dawn in front of Tamil homes and temples, traditionally with rice flour that also feeds ants and birds. Patterns are drawn freehand around a grid of dots (pulli), either joining them or looping around them in continuous lines (sikku kolam), and grow larger and more colourful in the month of Margazhi and at Pongal. In Mylapore, Chennai, the streets around the Kapaleeshwarar temple host a well-known kolam contest during the annual Mylapore Festival. Kolam is a living domestic tradition rather than a traded product and has no GI.