Dussehra Gifts

About

One festival, and four quite different days Dussehra falls on Vijayadashami, the tenth day of the bright fortnight of Ashvin, immediately after the nine nights of Navratri end, which puts it in late September or October. Depending on where the household is from it is also called Dasara, Vijayadashami or Bijoya Dashami, and those are not simply spellings. They are genuinely different observances, and the right gift depends entirely on which one you are buying for. Across the north the day marks Rama's return, after the Ramlila plays have run through Navratri, and the great effigies are set alight in an open maidan at dusk. In Bengal, Assam and Odisha it is Bijoya Dashami, the last day of Durga Puja: the immersion, and then the round of visiting, touching the feet of elders, embracing, and sweets pressed on everyone who comes through the door. That visiting is itself the gifting, and it is handled properly on the Durga Puja gifts page rather than here. In Maharashtra the day is Seemollanghan, the crossing of the boundary, and people exchange apta leaves as sona, gold, which is one of the very few gifting customs in the calendar that costs nothing and is still kept seriously. And across Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra and Telangana it is Dasara, the ten days that culminate at Mysuru, and the day of the Ayudha Pooja and of Vidyarambham. Those last two generate most of the actual buying, and they are the two that almost nobody writes about. Ayudha Pooja is why so many people search for a Dasara gift for employees On Ayudha Pooja the tools of a person's trade are cleaned, decorated and honoured. Not metaphorically: the lathe, the auto, the taxi, the sewing machine, the laptop, the instruments, the account books. Workshops shut for it. Vehicles are dressed with banana leaves and marigold. And in a great many South Indian offices and small businesses, this is the day the employer hands something to the staff, in front of everyone, on the floor. That context is the whole reaso