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Rang

Kolam white and Madras checks

Chennai

White kolam drawings at each doorstep, yellow autorickshaws, red colonial brick and painted temple towers.

Ripon Building aerial view
Photo: Saiphani02, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Why Chennai is kolam white

Each morning in Chennai many households draw a kolam at the doorstep: a pattern of loops and dots made with white rice flour or chalk powder. It welcomes guests and the goddess Lakshmi, and in the Tamil month of Margazhi the designs grow larger and are filled with colour. The city's other colours are easy to spot. Autorickshaws are yellow. The High Court and other buildings of the British period are in deep red brick, in a style called Indo-Saracenic. The gateway tower of the Kapaleeshwarar temple in Mylapore is covered in painted figures. The old name of the city lives on in Madras cloth, a light cotton woven in bright checks.

Kolam white#F5F2EAAutorickshaw yellow#F2C511Indo-Saracenic red#A6402FGopuram blue#3C8DBCMadras check red#C0392B

Values are fair approximations of what the eye sees there, not measurements.

Colours tied to Chennai

WhiteThe lightest colour, seen in snow, milk and chalk, and opposite to black
About this page

Written by the Rang desk with AI assistance. Background: "Chennai" on Wikipedia. If you know Chennai and we have it wrong, tell us.

More colour cities

All colour cities
🇮🇳 The Blue CityJodhpurOld-city houses washed in blue crowd the foot of Mehrangarh Fort, on the edge of the Thar Desert.🇮🇳 The Pink CityJaipurThe walled city wears a dusty terracotta pink, first painted on for a royal visit in 1876 and kept ever since.🇮🇳 The White CityUdaipurWhite palaces and whitewashed houses stand around lakes in the Aravalli hills of southern Rajasthan.🇮🇳 The Golden CityJaisalmerA fort and town built of yellow sandstone that glows like honey at sunset, deep in the Thar Desert.🇮🇳 City of saffron and lightVaranasiSaffron robes, marigold garlands and oil lamps colour the river steps of one of the oldest living cities.🇮🇳 Town of Holi coloursVrindavanFor Holi the temple town of Krishna's childhood fills with clouds of pink, yellow and green powder.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

The weekly palette

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