Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Colour Them - Tamil Nadu traditional art

At the entrance of many small villages all across Tamil Nadu, one can come across massive clay figures (terracotta figures) called Ayyanars. They are considered as guardian deities of the village. One such terracotta figure is shown below. Reference for this image is from this photograph. Thank you Shakti7.



Similar to giant pumpkin based scary themes for Halloween in west, Tamil Nadu uses pumpkin based scary figures/demons to ward off evil from houses. They are sometimes called dhristi bommai. Here are a few of them for the kids to colour and keep in front of their rooms :). The first one is similar to how it appears in the book The Magic Vessels.



If you want the large version of these pictures - they can be found here, here and here.

12 comments:

Poppy said...

Ooh a colouring book - I like! Am printing out the pages for some fun colouring - Poppin will love the scary pics :)

Choxbox said...

Nice!

Meera Sriram said...

Cool Sathish, thanks!!! My 5 yr old (& I) are equally excited:) Great timing (halloween) to talk abt the pumpkin painting in TN. The dhrishti bommai is taking me the streets where I grew up...

Anusha said...

you mean you drew these yourself to share with our kids? they look awesome, thank you so much!

sathish said...

thank you guys. incase, you guys plan to take print out; do go to the link at the bottom for a larger version. it might be easier for kids to colour them on a larger version and do share yours and your kids colours with us here at ST.

Poppy said...

I didn't realise that you had actually sketched them Satish - thought they were part of Magic Vessels - WOW!

Choxbox said...

Neither did I!

Praba Ram said...

Wow! Kudos to you, S!

Very thoughtful, S. We definitely need a "dhrushti bommai" for ST with all the good things happening - so we continue CROCUS each year without any glitches!!OH - may be the mommy bloggers can use them too! LOL!!:-)

This whole festival has been so much fun!!!

SoulSpace said...

We see and know the drishti bommai from childhood...but converting it into a colouring page is a great idea...
The whole essence of this Festival is the various perspectives we are getting from people who are passionate about books and children!
This is true integration of diversity...
You know you folks are going too fast for me..i want to savour each review and book, before that yu are rollercoasting to the next, I feel like a child with a learning difficulty!!...hahah

Poppins said...

ssstoryteller: Truly your comments have made our days here at ST! We are so happy and excited to see others who share our child-like glee over children's stories :)

Praba Ram said...

echoing poppy,SSStoryteller! :-)
We will touch-base soon and explore ways to integrate/collaborate!
We at ST love storytellers!:-)

Sheela said...

Wow, i echo ssstoryteller! I am struggling to keep up! But, I know the reviews are always here, forever, so I can always come back :)

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