This year’s Deepavali or the Festival of Lights on 27 October will shine brighter than before, thanks to six eye-catching kolams created by Limkokwing students.

More than 240 local and foreign students from the university worked meticulously for two days to design the kolams at strategic locations at the Pavilion Kuala Lumpur. The participants used more than 300 kilogrammes of rice in a variety of colours to produce themes such as Connection, Gourmet Emporium, Couture, Bintang Circle and Seventh Heaven.
Traditionally, kolams are placed in front of entrances before Deepavali to usher in prosperity and celebrate the victory of good over the evil. 

The initial kolam work started a month ago when lecturers and students from the university’s Faculty of Design and Innovation thought up the appropriate designs. Big-format designs were then drawn on floors before rice was soaked in multihued dyes and glued to the floors.

Contribution to community service

It was a rare experience for Iranian student Mohammad Amin Efthekhar, 19. “I was delighted to participate in the project as we do not have this in Iran,” he said.
Information technology student Shami Mohammed from Sudan found the task challenging but fun. “It was an opportunity to learn about Indian culture,” he said.

Architecture and built environment student Fathima Rizna Rafi, 20, from Sri Lanka teamed up with 30 participants to work on one design on the sixth level of the up-market shopping complex. “Kolams are quite common in my country, but it was the first time that I had taken part in this work of art,” she said.
Lecturer Saladin Gelam Mohamed said the project was Limkokwing’s contribution to community service and tourism. His colleague, Noor Salena Rashid, said the biggest design was placed on the left concourse on the sixth floor where 26 lecturers supervised the students’ work.

“The collaboration with Limkokwing was the fruitful result of a memorandum of understanding signed earlier this year to promote tourism-related activities, arts, culture and heritage,” said The Pavilion’s general manager of marketing, Kung Suan Ai.

At the launch of the kolams on Tuesday, students and guests were entertained to a peacock dance and a traditional bharatiya dance performed by students from the Temple of Fine Arts.