Ratham Rangoli Designs

Design facts

Dot grid

5 to 3 dots — tapering from 5 dots across the middle down to 3

Motif

Chariot

Video

3 min 34 s, uploaded 9 January 2025

Views

20,000 on YouTube as of 7 October 2026

Step by step: how to draw Ratham Rangoli Designs

1. Mark the 5-to-3 dot grid.
2. Draw a wide trapezoid for the chariot base — long top edge, shorter bottom edge — and curl a spiral out from each end.
3. Under the base draw two round wheels, each with eight spokes and a coloured dot at the hub.
4. Inside the base draw a layered lotus with a dot-tipped stem in the middle.
5. Raise two pillars from the base as twisted ropes of two eye shapes each, cap them with a twisted-rope beam of four eye shapes, and line every eye with yellow dots.
6. Between the pillars draw a small flower with a yellow centre and four pink rays.
7. Over the beam draw a peaked canopy edged with a scalloped row of petals, with a lamp — a flame on a two-lobed base — inside it and a row of three spirals beneath.
8. Plant a flag on the canopy peak and on each end of the beam, and hang a spiral curl below each beam end.

Related designs

• Krishna Jayanthi Kolam 5 to 3 Dots
• Sankranthi Muggulu Videos
• 5 Into 3 Dots Vilakku Kolam Designs

Further reading

• Venkatraman Gopalan & Brian K. VanLeeuwen, “A topological approach to creating any pulli kolam, an artform from South India”, Forma 30, 35–41 (2015). doi:10.5047/forma.2015.005

Read more

• Motifs and Symbolism