Gayathri Shankaranarayan, fondly known as ‘’Kolam Gayathri’’ was born to Ramaswamy, who was employed with the Indian Railways and homemaker Lakshmi. She was born in Madurai and schooled at the SRM Girls Higher Secondary School. Later when her father was transferred to Trivandrum, she continued her education there. She obtained a Diploma in Music from the Swathi Thirunal College of Music in Trivandrum in 1987.
She was fascinated with kolams right from childhood and recalls taking long winding routes to her school just to take a closer look at the kolams put up in front of the houses in her neighbourhood.
Her mother was her first guru and Gayathri loved watching her mother create those intricate designs with rice flour. Gayathri was so enamoured of kolams that all her school notebooks had kolam drawings
Marriage with Shankaranarayan brought her to Chennai where she lived in a joint family. Her interest in music made her obtain a bachelors degree in Indian Music from Madras University in 1998. She followed it up with a Masters degree also in Indian Music from Madras University in 2006. In spite of her busy schedule, she managed to complete her PhD in Carnatic music from Mother Teresa Women’s University, Kodaikanal in 2012. All her degrees were done through correspondence courses.
She pursued her education while simultaneously managing her family, taking care of her two sons and in-laws too. Though it was a challenging task, the support rendered by her husband, made it possible.
She began taking classes in Carnatic music from 2008 through Skype as most of her students were from the UK, US and Japan. She also conducts offline classes in both music and kolams. Her students are from all age groups and her aim is to reach out to the next generation.
She uses her kolams to convey messages. Her special thematic kolam during the Covid-19 pandemic was done to create awareness on Covid and to prevent its spread. Another thematic kolam was used to convey the importance of casting our vote.
The Chess Kolam that she put up during the Chess Olympiad held in Chennai in 2022, brought her a lot of recognition. This kolam was used by Mylapore Times newspaper on a T. shirt brought out by them.
Gayathri uses rice flour mixed with a little kolam powder as it can be consumed by birds and small insects. She puts up a kolam in her front yard every morning and each day, it’s a new design. Nowadays, she posts her kolams on Instagram.
Winning kolam competitions came naturally to Gayathri and the other participants stood no chance when Gayathri participated. She has been a judge for the kolam competitions of the Mylapore Festival for the past 20 years.
She is now working on a book on Kolams that she plans to release by the end of this year.
Gayathri is health conscious and gets to walk for about 5 kilometres a day. She regularly participates in Marathons held in the city. In the recent 10 kilometer Cancer Awareness Run conducted by Kauvery Cancer Institute in February 2025, Gayathri won the first prize.
An early bird, she wakes up at 4 every morning even before the crack of dawn and starts her daily routine. Her first batch of kolam students come in at 5.30 am. She is occupied throughout the day and she makes it a point to sleep by 8 pm.
When it comes to food, she likes all south Indian food and does not have any favourite dishes as such. She prefers to have a balanced diet that includes salads, vegetables etc and has a passion for cooking too.
She doesn’t watch TV and does not even have a TV set at home. She likes to watch a good movie once in a while. The recent movie she watched in the theatre was Amaran.
Gardening is one of her hobbies and she loves to take care of her small garden where she has tulsi, crotons, money plants, cactus, table rose and some herbal plants as well.
Being musically inclined, she recently participated in a vocal concert in All India Radio, Chennai held as part of the Republic Day celebrations organized by the South Zone Cultural Centre under the aegis of the Ministry of Culture, Government of India.
She had travelled to Japan in October/November 2023 on a private visit but her well wishers there encouraged her to hold kolam workshops in Japan which she did. She found that Japanese people are humble, courteous and quick to learn the art.
She has won many awards for her artistic traits and has been invited to give talks and conduct workshops in various institutions. She has judged multiple kolam and music competitions too.
In the words of the great Albert Einstein, ‘’Creativity is contagious, pass it on.’’ This is exactly what Gayathri has been doing over the years.
Juliana Sridhar is a lawyer and columnist
