I often see this lady applying the chalk powder to this driveway on my walk to work. Rangoli is a traditional decorative folk art of India, consisting of a colourful pattern made near the entrance to a house after it has been cleaned to welcome guests. The term Rangoli is derived from words: rang (colour) and aavalli (row ) so rangoli is row of colours.
I'm pretty skilled with sidewalk chalk, so my roommate Angela and I bought colours and tried to replicate these designs on the privacy of our rooftop. Major fail. No pictures survived of the project and our hands were dyed an incriminating blue (like we had severe frostbite) for a day after the fact.
"Hang ten" Rangoli
Our driveway rarely gets this special treatment. You can tell that it's a special occassion by the greenery, pooja offering of a smashed watermelon and large scale rangoli design outside our gate. (Just to be clear, our whole apartment building was not really clean!)
The biggest work I've seen was celebrating Diwali, the Festival of Lights.
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