Yesterday we noticed that one of our Indian neighbors was sweeping and mopping their back stoop, which we thought was a little weird considering it’s outside, it’s going to get dirty again, but we just thought to each his own. Then later when walking past the stoop we saw they had drawn a very complicated pattern with chalk and had seven candles burning in certain spots. The pattern had alot of loops in it and what looked to be a double traced M in the center, with some lines through the middle. After leaving this morning I noticed they had added alot more to the pattern, it now has an eye in the middle, and possibly some characters around the entire thing, and alot more color to it (the original pattern was in white, all the added stuff is in bright colors). No picture to speak of, it was around the time they usually come and go and I didn’t want to cause an awkward situation.
A quick google search gave me this, it’s similiar in style to what was drawn, but none of them match. Any idea at all what it was and what was happening?
And before you ask, I’m not super comfortable asking them directly about it. We’ve only lived there for a few months and have briefly chitchatted with them, nothing more. I feel that asking them directly may be an invasion.
Chalk patterns outside one’s house is extremely common in India (at least where I was, in southern India) throughout the year and has nothing to do with Diwali and everything to do with people thinking it looks pretty. As far as I could tell, they don’t have any particular significance and are just intended to be decorative.
It’s always nice to have questions that you can answer definitively!
**Kyla **is quite right about south India; my grandmother used to draw a rangoli in chalk just after washing the front steps of the house every day. Fancier rangolis with colouring are usually reserved for special occasions, because of the effort involved. Rangolis are largely decorative, but they are also thought to bring good luck.
Looking at the date that you posted on, it’s possible that they were celebrating Guru Nanak Jayanti (21st Nov), which would make them Sikh. Of course, they might also be celebrating an engagement, wedding or other event. The lights, however, are usually associated with Diwali, as other posters pointed out.
I don’t think they’d mind at all if you asked; you could always open the conversation with “I noticed you’d made a special rangoli a few days ago, and it looked lovely”, or something along those lines. If you’ve already chitchatted with them a few times, I very much doubt they’d see it as an invasion. Most people are quite happy to talk about festivals or other special events.
In a more general sense, they are part of a tradition of “painted prayers” in Hinduism (usually done by women). As with any aspect of Hinduism, there’s a good deal of variety.
In Bengal, they are usually done with a “paint” made of rice powder dissolved in water, and applied to surfaces (usually smooth concrete floors and porches) with the fingers. In my family, I’ve seen them done during any significant religious-related event, such as pujas and weddings.
My mother did it for my and my brother’s weddings – only with white paint on the front porch and the concrete walk from the driveway.
Buddhists in Nepal and Tibet make very complicated designs using coloured sand called “mandalas,” which are based on a similar idea.
hijack:
I was reading this book and in it a Hindu on a spaceship was blessing someone’s new residence. He had the coconut, but the spaceship was temporary, so all of the houses were these inflatable things, so he was reduced to carrying around a machete to chop the poor coconut in half as if he threw them they would just bounce. I thought that was kind of neat - HINDUS IN SPACE!
(Interestingly, and off-topic, the Hindu was one of the most likeable characters in the book. Not just comic relief, either. That was a switch.)
/end hijack
They are also painted on new cars in India, to bless them.
I’m sure I’ve told this story here before. My mother used to draw symbols on our porch and sidewalk during Diwali, and many of them had swastikas in them. I lived in a primarily Jewish neighborhood, so it was somewhat embarrassing when we were kids.
Huh. My mom stopped doing anything with swastikas very early on in my childhood.
I’ve mentioned before my complete and utter resentment that the evil Nazis managed to appropriate our religious symbol and worse yet, get to keep it. :mad:
It isn’t bad now. We’ve had “debates” on this over the years on these very boards. If Hitler had chosen the cross as the symbol of Nazism, would all churches around the world have removed it? Of course not.
Huh, so basically they were celebrating a holiday or… it was just because they thought it was pretty? It definetly wasn’t colored sand, it was your run of the mill colored chalk. I really wished I could have gotten a picture, but when I went home after posting the lights were on in the apartment, and I was pretty the flash of the camera would have caught someones attention. Sadly the drawing is gone now after the rainstorm we had last night, though the candles still remain. I could understand if they drew it just for decoration, it was beyond gorgeous!
Whatever they were doing, it had some religious aspect to it – puja, wedding, something. There is such a wide variation in traditions that it’s hard for any of us to say exactly what it was without seeing it or asking them.
Most Indian Hindus don’t use sand. Chalk or some other kind of pigment (like the rice paint I mentioned) is normal.
They are meant to be temporary, so yes it’s normal for them to have been washed away or rubbed away quickly.
