"michelle!! careful!! the rice!! aaaaah!!"

Rangoli is one of the most popular art forms in India. It is a form of decoration that uses finely ground white powder and colours, and is used commonly outside homes in India.

Rangoli can be wall art as well as floor art. The term rangoli is derived from words rang (colour) and aavalli (‘coloured creepers’ or ‘row of colours’).

- Wikipedia

[Note: Although I use the word "Kolam" in this entry, I actually mean "Rangoli".]

The Scholar(s?) Committee of IMU organized its annual Art Competition recently. The theme of this year’s competition was “Reflection”.

There were quite a few categories in the competition, namely Poetry, Sketching and Paintings, Photography, Chinese and Jawi caligraphy and Kolam. [Now I feel like I'm writing a secondary school essay ><] I don’t know what got into him, but one of my friends, Ben, decided to go all enthu on us and signed another three of us up with him to join the Kolam competition. -_-||

[He's wearing his "pervert specs"... Ahaha!]

My other teammates were Tracy and Ho Wai. We were kinda lost because we didn’t really know anything about making a Kolam. All _I_ knew was that we needed lots and lots of coloured rice and a decent amount of artistic talent, both of which I did not happen to have. -_-”We were supposed to design a Kolam as big as a piece of mahjong paper. Our first draft for the Kolam design was to write the word “dragon” in traditional chinese in red in a square of white.

Needless to say, we are now VERY thankful we did not actually use that design. :P

About 5 days before the actual event, we [Um. Not "we" la... It was Ho Wai. Haha.] finished the final draft [there is a REASON I am not posting the draft up people, if I did, where would all the suspense go?!].

[I tried blurring our kolam... But I kinda failed. Haha]

The next thing we had to do was to colour the rice. This was again something I knew nuts about. But it got the hang of it and it turned out to be quite fun! [Ben was doing most of the dyeing though... :P] We had to dye the rice in 3 batches and we used powdered dyes. This was how my hands looked like after a particular dyeing session.

[cyanosis = a bluish or purplish discoloration (as of skin) due to deficient oxygenation of the blood]

A day before the actual event, we even practised! We drew sketches of parts of our Kolam on pieces of paper and practised filling them up with coloured rice. Hahaha. We only had 2 hours to finish our Kolam and we were really worried that we wouldn’t be able to finish…There were 10 teams in total from all the 5 semesters of the medical faculty of IMU. Most of the teams were from Semester 1 [my semester!! M206 rocks!! :D] Many of them were very experienced while it was our first time. And we found out that we were the only fully chinese team [surprise surprise!]

We were intimidated. With good reason. -_-

We were very proud of ourselves because we came up with some “strategies” to make life easier for us:

1. Using seperate plastic cups for different colours so nobody would be scrambling and panicking to get the colours they needed
2. Using paper “funnels” for areas that needed more detail
3. Starting from the middle of the Kolam and moving towards the outside so that nobody would be banging into each other
4. Delegating parts of the Kolam to be coloured
5. Taping the mahjong paper to the floor so that it would not shift
6. Using rulers and plastic spoons to help

But when we reached the location of the event, we felt quite potong because everybody else already seemed to do everything we were doing as if it were already common protocol. *shakes head* Some of them even brought little oil lamps, flowers AND glitter to decorate their Kolams!!!

We felt even MORE intimidated. =

I don’t have pics of us actually completing the Kolam, but we managed to take a pic of us pretending to complete the Kolam after actually completing it. :P

[The girl in maroon is Tracy. We both damn low profile :P]

However, the REAL shock came later as we were the FIRST team to finish!! We were like “What?! Serious ah? So much time left?!” [We finished within 80 minutes!] We then proceeded to do something else very bersemangat-ly…

[Another mini Kolam! Slogan courtesy of Ho Wai :D]

We then continued to be very assy and walk around looking at other entries while taking pics of them [...and ourselves!]. We even took individual pics with our Kolam! [but they shall not be posted, lazy to resize + edit :P]Here are pics of all the rest of the entries!! The following pics are all taken by Ben.
[Note: I'm sorry if some of the captions are crap... I was multi-tasking: Photoshop + iTunes + Photobucket]

For those who actually counted the number of pictures/are interested in knowing how my group’s Kolam looks like…It’s not been posted yet. :P Save the best for last ma… Ehehe.

This is what happened after the competition ended and non-competitors were allowed into the Kolam area…

[Everybody wanted a pic with the M206 Kolam -_-||]

We then left to the burger stall outside Vista B for supper. The results were to be announced the next day.

*saspens*saspens*saspens****
*saspens*saspens*saspens*

[um. YES, I know how to spell "suspense" properly. I just think that "saspens" looks nicer. Pfft.]

Come the next day. I had a choir club performance for the IMU Art Competition. Blablabla. SOMEBODY SANG KAU ILHAMKU WITH A GUITAR!!! Blablabla.The results were finally announced. Ei, I tell you, M206 DAMN kick ass okay!!! We won prizes for ALL the categories [besides Chinese Caligraphy I think]!! We won first for photography and poetry, most enthusiastic participant [for poetry], second and third for Jawi caligraphy, forgot which position for sketching/drawing!!!

The four of us were squirming in our seats. We wanted the Kolam competition results!!!!

First, they announced the consolation prize. We didn’t win. Suan liao.

THEN, they announced the third prize. Tak dapat also. Har? Really meh?The second prize was given out. Not us. Aihz. Never mind lah, still got next year ma… Hor?

Then the [quite lame] emcees asked the crowd: “WHO DO YOU THINK SHOULD WIN THE KOLAM COMPETITION??”

And quite surprisingly, the M206-ans [which consisted 98% of the audience... Yeah, we sooo enthu -_-] yelled: “GROUP 7!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” [Our group la... duh..]

I was pretty thrown aback at first but I yelled along with them :P

Then I heard one of the emcees say this in an undertone:

“Wah. Got leakage leh….”

AND TRUE ENOUGH, WE WERE THE WINNERS OF THE KOLAM COMPETITION!!!!
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

WE WERE THE ONLY FULLY CHINESE TEAM

WE WERE FIRST TIMERS

SOME OF OUR RICE WAS MOULDY

WE DIDN’T HAVE GLITTER, FLOWERS OR OIL LAMPS

AND YET WE WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was all “WHAT THE HELL?!?!?!?!?” [out loud... Seriously.] as we walked up the stage. Just a few minutes ago we were talking about how we would end up in tears if we didn’t win.

I was surprised we didn’t end up in tears EVEN after we DID win. :P

SEE SEE SEE!!!!!!

[see we so happy!!!!!!!!! we were actually much happier than we look in this pic. my hands were shaking. haha.]
[the winners!! ... And some people who are just kepoh :P]

We would like to thank THE PLASTIC SPOON for being the greatest invention ever in the Kolam world. We would also like to thank the people that came over to Ho Wai’s house and sokong-ed us kao kao!!!! We also want to say thank you to Miruna for giving us pointers on how to dye rice. Thanks to Adrian too for fetching Ben, Tracy and me to Masjid India to buy dye! Thanks Merv and Kim for helping take some of the pics!!And no thanks to the people who threatened to step on our Kolam >=( LoL.

[Yes, we know you want to be there when our Kolam has to be destroyed... =]

*contented sigh*

Okay lah. I shall put all of you out of our misery!

*drumroll*drumroll*drumroll*

HERE’S THE KOLAM THAT THIS WHOLE ENTRY IS ACTUALLY ABOUT!!!!!

[it's so pretty I'm not even gonna edit it!! :D]

No, the red thing’s not a chicken/duck with pink feathers/fish [?!?!]/goose. It’s a PHOENIX. LoL. Anyway, we won and we don’t care what you think it is. :PBy the way, each group had to present their Kolam and tell the judges what the Kolam meant. Ben did the presentation and YOU SHOULD’VE SEEN THE WAY HE DID IT. My chin hurt ‘cos it banged against the floor when my jaw dropped. [Ha. Ha.]

If you want to know more about what our Kolam actually means, you can go to Ben’s blog and find out! [Nah, Ben, giving you free traffic! LoL.] :D It’ll probably be some time before he actually posts it ‘cos his laptop “KO-ed” and it’s a bit hard for him to blog otherwise…

The pictures are kinda small, I know… I’ll put some of them up on my Friendster when I have the time… However, I’d be glad to help transfer the pics to the pendrives of any IMU people who’re reading this blog! ;)

WHEE~!!!!

Potential competitors for next year’s Kolam competition beware! The “defending champions” [wah, damn syok sendiri.... :P] will be there! :D

PS My personal favourite was the glittery peacock (Group 5)! Glitter!! I love!!!! :D :D

hell hath no fury like a woman scorned

I HATE BLOGGER!!!!!!!1111111111111111111111!!!!!!!!!!!

MY LATEST POST IS MISSING.

AAAAAAAAAAAARGGHH!!!!

STUPID BLOGGER BETA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

[edit: okay. found it... it was somehow put into the October 1990 archive. -_-|| I don't know how it got there... Thanks Dot for relocating it for me in my moment of panic! *sheepish smile*]