If you are a Chennai Super Kings (CSK) fan then you would certainly be aware of “whistlepodu” – a catchphrase and a battlecry for fans cheering for their team. This IPL season, a Chennai-based group is giving this slogan a twist — kolam podu it is. Fresh from the oven, this catchphrase seeks to achieve two purposes — extend support to CSK and while doing so, draw attention to the traditional art form of kolam drawing. With fast-paced urban life leaving people strapped for time, the enthusiasm for kolam is waning in metros. (For the uninformed and uninitiated, kolam drawing is carried out with rice powder or chalk).
Initiated by Kolam Podu — a YouTube channel established to revive, demystify and educate people about the art of drawing kolams — its latest campaign is smart and peppy, and drawing people to take a fresh look at the designs in front of houses.
The strategy is obvious — use the IPL fever and the love for CSK to get people to think and talk about kolams. The significant part is that it encourages CSK fans to go beyond thinking about kolams and actually draw one to demonstrate their support for the team. The ultimate goal is that it would want people doing whatever they could to revive kolam drawing in the ways they deem fit
Chennai Super Kingskku periya kolam podu/ Tamil Naatu stylela sikku kolam podu/ Namma ooru baaniyila valaichu valaichu podu/ Namma singham dhonikku sokka kolam podu… so goes the first four lines.
“We have picked words from kolam and cricket to create a video; it has music by Swaminathan Selvaganesh, grandson of Vikku Vinayakram,” says Bhargavii Mani, who leads Kolam Podu. For example, sikku is a style of kolam that the YouTube channel presents in much detail.
Taking us through the campaign, Bhargavii says that after the song was ready, it was about figuring out how to engage audiences.
“Through my circle of friends, I reached out to a few dance schools and asked them to come up with their own dance version of the song. The brief was simple: download our song and choreograph it the way you want to and send us your version,” says Bhargavii.
Kolam Podu plans to upload a new video every week based on the responses they get.
“If cricket brings people together then let’s also try it through kolams,” she says.
They are also creating GIFs to promote the traditional art form. There is a strong motivation for Bhargavii to promote kolams. Following a medical emergency two years ago, she started drawing kolams as therapy, physical and psychological.
She had a stoke which led to loss of mobility for a few days.
“I lost a significant part of my memory too,” she says.
Turning to kolams slowly helped her bounce back.
“Kolam Podu was more like a happy project that I had started to get out of it and I want others to enjoy the benefits it has to offer,” she says.
Email them at kolampodu@gmail.com or visit their Instagram page.
A collaborative effort
A dance school in Besant Nagar is thrilled with the rave reviews that a dance video it has shot for a jingle to promote Chennai Super Kings, is receiving. What is interesting is that parents, students and the dance teacher collaborated optimally, though the time at their disposal was short, to submit the video to Kollam Podu, which is running a campaign to promote the art of kolam drawing.
“An average Bharatanatyam recital is four minutes long and here we had to shorten it to around 1 minute 14 seconds which was a huge challenge for us in the three days given to us,” says Vanishree Ravishankar, who runs Natya Samarpanam, located in Besant Nagar. She choreographed the dance with her daughter Madhuvanthi Muliya.
Since the lockdown, the school has not been conducting classes on its premises and they had to quickly assemble a team for the shoot. Seven students were ready for the rehearsal.
On Sunday morning, they short the video on the terrace of a student’s house in Kasturibai Nagar. Two of the parents shot the video and Vanishree’s daughter did the editing.
Vanishree says, “On Sunday night it was uploaded and we are happy with the results of this collaborative work.”
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