Navratri Gifts Ideas

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What to give depends on which Navratri you were invited to Nine nights, one goddess, and three observances that want completely different objects. In Gujarat and Maharashtra the season is garba and dandiya in the evenings, with a kalash and a decorated chowki set up at home on the first morning and, in many houses, an akhand jyot kept alight the whole nine nights. In Bengal, Assam and Odisha the same days are Durga Puja , built around the pandal and the neighbourhood rather than the house. In Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka it is Golu, a display of figures assembled on odd-numbered steps, and visitors come to see it. The gift follows the observance rather than the calendar. A household keeping ghatasthapana wants something for the chowki. A Golu household wants a figure small enough to earn a step. A Durga Puja family is out of the house most of the week, so the gift is really for after. Get that one thing right and the rest of it is easy. The tenth day has its own gifting again, which is Dussehra . Mata ki chowki is an evening, not a piece of furniture More people arrive here looking for mata ki chowki gifts than for anything else, and the phrase confuses because it names two things at once. A mata ki chowki is a devotional evening held at home, bhajans and a jagrata for the Devi, often with hired singers and a room full of guests. The chowki itself is the low seat the goddess is installed on, and the evening is named after it. If you have been invited, you are a guest at somebody's puja, so the useful gift is for the shrine rather than for the host personally. A diya, a small Devi figure, or a chowki for the installation itself. Take it wrapped and hand it over near the start rather than at the end, because the shrine is set before the singing begins. If you are the one hosting, the return gift goes to every guest on the way out, and the convention in most homes is thamboolam: a small package holding haldi, kumkum, a coconut or fruit, and one k