Simple Alpona Design with Flowers for Diwali Festival

Simple alpona design with flowers for Diwali celebrations by me in front of my house.

How to Draw Alpona with Rice Flour Paste

Alpona art is done with liquid rice flour paste. A small piece of soft cloth is dipped in it and designs are drawn by gently squeezing the wet cloth with rice flour paste as you draw the design. When the water dries off the design stands out white and clear.

Alpona design with rice flour paste

Simple traditional alpona floor design

Diwali alpona rangoli with flowers

Alpona with Flowers for Diwali

I am not an expert at it, but some how managed to get some kind of decent symmetry in the design. As the design dried up I filled it up with flower petals to add some color. It took me three hours to complete it.

Religious Significance to Alpona Art

Alpona art is drawn using rice flour, this act is known by the name bhutayajna. This act of offering rice flour through alpona on floor to tiny creatures like ants and other insects is counted as one’s good deed of the day.

Bengali women draw easy alpona on door step and puja rooms, especially during Lakshmi Puja, that is celebrated on full moon night (Sharad Purnima) after 10th day of Durga Puja festival. Little designs rembling foot prints are drawn right from entrance to Puja room and all other rooms. It is believed that Goddess Lakshmi visits every household at night and enters the rooms where the footsteps are drawn and showers her blessings. No footsteps, no blessings!

During Diwali it is a ritual in every Hindu household to light lamps. People also add colorful designs around the lamps and put alpona designs in front of their houses. They call it Rangoli.

Bengali alpona are colourful designs and paintings done on the floor or flat surface. It forms an integral part of religious rites of Bengal. Rangoli, another form of floor art, uses colored sand to draw the design. Interestingly this form of artwork is mainly done by women and hardly by men.

Rangoli translates to row of colors. It is a form of freehand art expressed on the floor during festive occasions. It has its origin in Maharashtra. Alpona is a subset of Rangoli. Origin of Alpona art can be credited to women of Bengal.

Alpana Design with rice flour paste

Alpana Design with rice flour paste (lot of flaws in the art with my unsteady hand, sorry for that)

Alpona designs and lamps

Alpona designs and lamps

Other forms of Rangoli are Aripana (practiced in Bihar), Mandana (floor paintings of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh), Kolam (practiced in Tamil Nadu).

Commercialization hasn’t spared this art too. Market shelves are stuffed with painted transparent sheets (stickers) of alpona designs. I won’t be surprised if there are Chinese versions too. But please call them Chioli or Chiona or Cholam and NOT Rangoli or Alpona or Kolam.

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