How to make Rangoli colours at home? Alternatives for making simple and quick rangoli, festival celebrations

With beginning of Chaitra Navratri, Hindu community begins the New Year with celebrations of Gudi Padwa and Ugadi from Wednesday, i.e. today. Due to COVID-19 infection, all the collective and mass celebrations have been cancelled.

However, the restriction to keep social distance and staying at home, cannot hamper your festive celebrations. With a little effort on preparing delicious treats and colours at home, it is possible for people to make a cosy new memory and begin the New Year.

For the first, prepare your own Gudi by tying sari or any bright piece of cloth at the top of bamboo. On top of it, put some boughs of neem leaves and mango leaves along with a garland of flowers. Further, cap this with a silver, bronze or copper pot (handi or kalash) signifying victory or achievement.

How to prepare Rangoli colours at home?

One of the important rituals for Gudi Padwa is preparation of Rangoli. The colourful floor designs bring the festive feel and positivity. However, there are no more stores selling colours to prepare Rangoli, so what to do?

Here is how you can prepare the rangoli colours at home in brief as shared by Meena Hinduja, an environmentalist.

1.      Using colourful ingredients from your kitchen like turmeric, beetroot, spinach, food colouring and cinnamon to tint any white flour if possible coarse, i.e. all-purpose flour, rice flour or cornflour.

2.      Instead of using white colour, you can use rice to prepare borders of your rangoli.

3.      Using dried leaves, fresh leaves and flowers can be a good replacement.

4.      If you have leftover gulal (herbal colours) from Holi celebrations, then you can add some dry rangoli powder and use it for rangoli as well.

5.      You can also tint rice easily and prepare the entire rangoli with different coloured rice.

6.      An alternative is going monochrome. You can paint the floor using gheru and prepare design on it using white chalk or rangoli colour.

7.      One of the easiest way is to prepare rangoli on paper using colours and pasting it on the floor.

Traditional rangoli designs include Lakshmi footsteps, kalash, swastik, mango motifs, and geometric shapes and designs.

Shailputri: the first form of Goddess

On the first day of Chaitra Navratri, i.e. today, Shailputri form of goddess is worshipped.

The day is also known as Pratipada. Shailputri means ‘Daughter of Mountain’. The form is an incarnation of Parvati as a form of Mother Nature. In this form, the goddess is powered with the powers of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.

Shailputri rides a bull (Nandi) and carries a trident and a lotus in her two hands. She is considered to be the direct incarnation of Mahakali. The colour of the day is red, which depicts action and vigour.

In yoga, Shailputri is goddess of the Muladhara (root) chakra. This the most basic chakra in the body meaning foundation. From this point, the yogic journey of realisation begins.

Simple greetings

While staying at home due to lockdown, people have time to prepare their own greeting cards instead of just forwarding one on social media. It is a good idea to try your hand at simple sketching and drawing till you have time. Following are simple greeting designs prepared by avid artists in the city

Mechanical engineer Kunal Sisodiya has prepared a sketch showing empowered women power in his sketch themed on Gudi Padwa

Apurva Girothia, an avid artist, prepares a traditional simple design that can be replicated to celebrate the fest.

CA student Shivanshi Mishra depicts the power of positivity and prays that the New Year takes away the pains of the last especially COVID-19 infection.