Rangoli , or alpona (drawing - prayer ) - drawing an ornament on the external walls of the house - especially around the front door - and on a carefully cleared and rammed area in front of the entrance to the house. The different peoples of India, the types of these drawings are different, and many are rooted in antiquity, in those historical epochs, when they attributed magical significance and applied to the earth near the altars and places of sacrifice. One can trace the direct connection of some of them with patterns on seals and vessels found during excavations in the Indus Valley .
At the dawn, when men were still sleeping, women, scooping up a handful of paint (usually powder) and passing it in narrow trickles between fingers, with imperceptible movements of the hand, quickly and accurately draw a delicate and complex ornament on the floor and on the ground. Sometimes it is one-color, but more often two- and three-color, and it takes a huge skill in order to pinch your fingers in time, blocking, where necessary, trickles of paint.
Now in the cities they began to sell hollow tubes with holes located in a certain order. Sellers pour in them the coloring powder and roll on asphalt. The patterns are lace, but they all have the character of stripes, while real traditional alpons consist of the most complicated interweaving of lines in a square, circle, star or any other contour. Tibetan monks use the same technique to create sand mandalas .