Dussehra Gifts

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 reason a mug or an insulated bottle lands badly there when the same thing lands fine in a Delhi office. The day already has a register: the workplace is being treated as something worth honouring. A small murti reads as of a piece with that. A branded bottle reads as stock left over from a conference.

Practically, for a group order, pick one design and buy it in quantity rather than assembling a mixture, because people compare and a mixture reads as leftovers. The pocket temples are the natural choice at scale, since they are self-contained, they close, and they suit a desk or a dashboard as readily as a shelf. Hanuman is the other form that carries across a mixed group in the south and the west. See corporate gifts, or send the headcount and the date through the bulk order enquiry page and we will confirm what can be matched in one finish.

Below about eight hundred rupees a head, buy something else

Worth saying plainly, because a great many people arrive looking for Ayudha Pooja gifts for employees under five hundred and we have no honest answer at that number. The brass symbol diyas are the only pieces here under a thousand, the pocket temples sit a little above it, most murtis fall between two and five thousand, and solid brass starts higher again.

If the per head budget is genuinely under five hundred, a sweet box from a good local shop, or a decent steel item, will be better received than anything we could sell you at that price. That is the honest answer and it saves you the search.

Vidyarambham, where the gift chooses itself

In Kerala and coastal Karnataka, Vijayadashami is the day small children are started on letters. The child is seated in a lap and a first letter is traced in a tray of rice, or written on the tongue in gold, and Saraswati is invoked. It happens once, at three or four or five, and it is remembered for a lifetime.

It is the one occasion on this page where the right gift is not a judgement call. Saraswati with the veena is the deity of the day. Our Saraswati range is small and keeps its own page, so see Saraswati murtis. Where the family already keeps a Saraswati, a Ganesha sized for the child's own desk works instead, since Ganesha is invoked at the start of any undertaking and this is the first one the child will remember beginning. See Ganesha idols.

What the day does not need from us

The Ayudha Pooja itself needs nothing we sell. The objects being honoured are the recipient's own tools, and a murti is no part of the rite. What a murti does on Vijayadashami is mark the day, which is a smaller and more modest claim, and it is the true one.

We also make no effigies, sweets, dry fruit boxes, flowers or food hampers, which between them are most of what the Dussehra gifting market actually sells. If that is what you came for, this is the wrong shop and you will do better elsewhere.

What is here, and which finish to take

The range follows the day: Ram, with Hanuman alongside him, and Durga where the tenth day closes the Puja. Sizes run from small desk and dashboard pieces up to figures of eight inches and above, and the pocket temples sit at the small end.

On finish the difference matters more than it looks. A plated piece is a resin core with a layer of copper over it and gold or silver electroplated on top, and on some pieces both. Resin does not conduct, so it cannot be plated directly, and the copper is the layer the precious metal keys onto. That is why these are light, why the detail stays crisp at a small size, and why water is the one thing that will spoil them. Take plated where the piece is going to be looked at, handed over on the day, or kept on a desk or a dashboard.

Solid brass is the other answer. It is poured slowly into a mould made for that one idol, and the mould is broken open once the metal has cooled, so every casting gets its own. That is why the detail holds where a reusable sand mould softens it, and it is why the brass itself has to be high grade, since a lesser alloy will not fill the shape cleanly. Take brass where the piece will be bathed, handled daily, or kept for decades. See Ram murtis, Hanuman idols, Maa Durga murtis and the full range.

Order before the week itself

The date moves with the lunar calendar and lands in late September or October, and Diwali follows about twenty days after it. That is the part that catches people out: the same households buy twice inside three weeks, and a specific finish is the first thing to go. Order as soon as the date is fixed rather than in the week itself, and well before that for a group order that has to match.

Every piece is checked at our own warehouse before it goes out, and everything ships in our own packaging, made to be opened rather than merely to survive the journey. That counts for more here than on most pages, because a good share of these are handed over in front of a room and unwrapped on the spot.

For the nine nights that lead up to the day, see Navratri gifts.