Who Ate the Kolam?

“Who ate the kolam?” is a strange question, but one that our author Nishtha Gupta Jain pondered upon when she saw a kolam outside her friend’s house and was intrigued by the pattern. Kolam is a traditional form of art, found outside most houses in South India, where rice flour is used to make line drawings using straight lines, loops and curves that create intricate patterns. But if kolams are drawn outside homes every day, what happens to the one drawn the day before?

When Nishtha asked her friend, the answer surprised her: nobody needed to clear it away.

That conversation became the inspiration for Who Ate the Kolam?, a story that captures the imagination of a little girl as she tries to understand where the kolam goes and explores why it is important to the community. 

Making the kolam is an act of sharing. Every day, after the kolam is drawn, birds and small animals like ants and squirrels come up to the kolam and eat as much as they want. It is an invitation that people give to the animals around them. This small act brings people closer to nature and reminds us that we are part of the world we share with other living beings.

When asked why she felt she should write about it, Nishtha said that such beautiful traditions should reach children. A simple tradition such as this has a deeper meaning than just making beautiful designs and children should know about it. 

In the story, little Ira asks her grandmother why the kolam disappears at the end of the day, and her grandma in turn asks her what she thinks. Ira’s imagination takes over. Maybe a giraffe slurped it all up, or perhaps a hippo sneezed! As Nishtha explained it, children don’t think like adults; they don’t use logic to make sense of something. And Ira’s imagination is no different. Her explanations would make anyone laugh. Can you imagine a giraffe bending down to slurp up thin lines of rice flour? It’s an image that is sure to make you smile.

Our illustrator Saloni Ramteke did a wonderful job bringing Ira’s imagination to life with an elephant stomping on the kolam, a hippo sneezing it away, a giraffe slurping up the entire kolam in one sitting! Her beautiful illustrations made the story come alive.