When I was a little girl, my aunt used to get up early in the morning. She would have a shower and then created a symmetrical pattern in the front yard, after cleaning and sprinkling water. Some women in Madras still create these designs. I must admit that I had to drive ten miles from downtown before I found a row of houses with the threshold design. O sounds like Oh.
U sounds like bun.
When the symmetrical pattern is decorated in colors using colored sand or flower, then it is called rangoli. The design or pattern is not symmetrical sometimes, but it is just a continuous line that curves around to make a beautiful border or design at the Center of the yard. . The threshold desing is compared to african sand drawings. Please check the references below for additional information. Holding a handful of flour in their right hand, the woman will uniformly drop the flour to make a line through her thumb and pointer and keep on moving her hands to make the curve or the dots.