Simple Pleasures

One of the most daunting chores I have at home during this period of Lockdown is making the "Muggu" daily in front of the house. Staying with my mother in Hyderabad during Lockdown entailed this new learning experience! 'Muggu' is an essential part of almost all Telugu households. For the uninitiated, it's a pattern made of either rice flour paste or special Muggu powder in front of the main door or main gate. It's called "Kolam" in Tamil and "Rangoli" is the colourful North Indian version.

Any South Indian worth their salt has to know Muggu/Kolam. Mornings in most South Indian households start with the mandatory Suprabhatam/Vishnu Sahasranamam by M.S.Subbalakshmi. As her divine voice pervades the house and wakes you up from a deep slumber, the heavenly aroma of filter coffee percolates all corners of the house. And usually, at this point the lady of the house or the house-help sweeps and mops the area in front of the main door and adorns it with intricate patterns of Muggu.

Having grown in different cities in the formative years, I never mastered the typical traditional norms of a South Indian household. As I couldn't draw a straight line with a scale, the intricate Muggu seemed like an overambitious project. All these years, I managed without learning it and on festive occasions like Dushera or Diwali, when I was in a truly inspired state I managed to draw an intertwined star, with parallel or almost parallel lines on the sides to give the house a festive look. And pretty much patted myself on the back for having tried!

In the Lockdown routine, I wanted to rise up to the occasion and master the art of drawing Muggu come what may. With that determination, I opened the front door only to realize that the mosaic tiles in the corridor outside the main door didn't offer much in the way of a background as compared to the beautiful red-oxide background for the intricate Muggus I had been admiring and watching diligently on YouTube. Armed with nothing but determination I ventured on my mission. My mother helpfully suggested that the househelp used a wet chalk to draw the intricate Muggus. That seemed like a redeeming factor at this point. After all, drawing with a chalk had to be a lot easier than trying to draw with the slippery Muggu powder or the rice powder paste that the neighbour at the end of the corridor used. But the mosaic tiled flooring outside the main door proved to be a big dampener to my enthusiastic efforts.

The typical Muggu is supposed to begin with a few dots, placed symmetrically in horizontal and vertical lines. Then lines are drawn around them to create intricate interlocking patterns. As I did my homework about the art of drawing Muggu, I realized that there were various scientific and spiritual undertones to the whole process.

Knowing my limitations in the art form, I began with the most basic. The four dots design, I assumed was the beginner's design and I started with that. First few days were failed attempts as I couldn't decipher the dots on the mosaic tiles and the lines and dots seemed to be at cross purposes. Muggu is usually made after the floor is swept clean and mopped neatly. While this was the simplest first step, the wet mosaic tiles and the wet chalk made an already daunting task impossible. And the only way to realize the follies of my desperate attempts was after the tiles dried out. By which time, my enthusiasm and interest both waned. A better job was reserved for the next morning.

Though I struggled the first week, my mother offered enthusiastic encouragement and applauded my rather childish attempts.
After a week of futile attempts, I hit upon the solution of drawing the lines parallel to the outline of the tiles and trying to put the four dots in approximately the centre of the rounded off patterns. The actual process is the reverse of what I was doing. But the results were what mattered the most to me, at this point.

After four weeks of Lockdown I have now sort of mastered my own version of drawing the Muggu and my mother takes great pride and pleasure in clicking pictures of my amateurish attempts and shares it on family groups! Though I have a long way to go, there's one thing I've rediscovered during this period and it is, that simple things can give us great pleasure too. One need not have achieved great things in life to feel a sense of accomplishment. One can learn to derive great pleasure and pride and even feel a sense of achievement and accomplishment by learning new and simple tasks. Another unintended life lesson during this Lockdown is deriving great happiness in simple pleasures of life.