Mother's Day Gifts

The mandir in an Indian house belongs to everyone and is maintained by one person, and in most houses that person is the mother. She lights the diya, she washes the thali, she replaces the wick, she is the one who notices the brass has gone dull and does something about it. That is the most useful single fact to hold when buying her a Mother's Day gift, and it points somewhere slightly different from where the gift lists point.

It also means a spiritual gift is not automatically the right one here, and that the choice inside that category matters far more than the decision to buy one at all. The thing she will genuinely use is not always another figure to look at. It is often the equipment she already handles every morning, in better condition than what she has. A brass diya, a pooja thali, a chowki to raise the deity to a sensible height, an urli by the entrance. These are ordinary objects, and that is exactly why they work as gifts: hers are a decade old and blackened, and she has never replaced them, because nobody buys themselves a diya.

Check the shelf before you buy another deity

This is the most common way a well meant gift turns into a small problem. A murti is not an object that can be quietly retired to a cupboard when there is no room for it. Once a piece is in the mandir it stays, and a household already keeping six figures does not want a seventh, however good it is. Where the shelf is full, the pieces around it are the better gift, and an urli solves it neatly because it belongs at the entrance or on a table rather than in the mandir at all.

Which goddess, and when her own deity beats all of them

Where you know the deity she keeps, that is the gift and there is nothing left to decide. Where you do not, the goddesses are the reasonable default and they are not interchangeable. Lakshmi is the one most households already keep, alone or paired with Ganesha, and her charan paduka is the smaller version of the same idea, meant for a threshold rather than a shelf. Durga suits a house that keeps Navratri properly and is the natural choice for a Bengali or Gujarati family. Saraswati is the right answer for a mother who teaches or who sings, and she does not sit in this selection in her own right. Where you know nothing about the household at all, the Kamdhenu cow with her calf is the safest thing anyone can give, because it is domestic rather than devotional and asks nothing of her.

A first Mother's Day is not the same purchase

More people look for a gift for a new mother than for any other kind, and the difference is worth taking seriously rather than treating it as the same thing in a smaller size. A woman a few months into her first child has no spare time, no spare surface and no appetite for another object to maintain. What suits her is small, plated and already finished, since it presents well and needs nothing done to it, and a pocket temple suits her particularly well because it closes, which matters in a house where every low surface is about to become a question. What we do not make is anything for the baby.

If you are her husband, you know something her children do not

A husband buying for the mother of his children is in a different position from a son or a daughter, and the difference is information. He has seen that shelf every day for twenty years. He knows which diya is bent, which thali she quietly stopped using, whether there is room for anything more, and whether she has been wanting a proper chowki without mentioning it. That knowledge is the thing everyone else is missing, and it makes the specific replacement a better gift than the general tribute. Buy the thing she has been making do without.

What to spend, and when the handmade thing is genuinely better

A large share of what people look for at this time of year is handmade and homemade, and under a few hundred rupees that instinct is right. A card, a meal cooked by somebody who does not usually cook, an afternoon: those beat any small object bought to fill a slot, and it is worth saying so rather than selling you one.

Where there is a budget it goes further here than in most gift categories. Under 500 there is a pooja chowki and not a great deal else. Under 1000 buys a brass diya, which is the most used object in the house and the one people forget can simply be replaced. Under 2000 covers a pocket temple, a plated Kamdhenu, a lotus diya or a pair of small brass diyas. Under 3000 is where the urli sets, the meenakari animals from the animal decor and the loban burners sit, and it is the most reliable band on this page. Under 5000 buys a solid brass Lakshmi or Durga with real presence, and up to 10000 buys one landmark piece, which is the sensible way to spend a collected family fund rather than splitting it across several small gifts.

Brass, plated, and the white and gold pieces

Brass matters more here than on most pages, because these are objects that get washed. A diya, a thali and a burner are cleaned constantly, and brass is the only material we make that takes that indefinitely; it darkens as surface oxide and comes back with lemon and salt. Solid brass is poured slowly into a mould made for that one piece, 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 why the alloy has to be high grade, since a lesser brass will not fill the shape cleanly. It is also what you are seeing when a cheap brass diya has a soft, blurred edge around the flame cup.

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. The copper is what the precious metal keys onto, since resin cannot be plated directly, and it is why these pieces are light, why the detail stays crisp at a small size, and why water is the one thing they do not survive. That last point matters more on this page than on most: a plated piece is a lovely gift for a shelf and the wrong gift for a mother who performs abhishek every morning. Ask, or buy brass.

The white and gold pieces are a resin core coated in marble dust, which is what gives them the surface and the weight of marble. The jewellery is made separately in brass, electroplated, and applied to the figure by hand one piece at a time, which is why the finish varies a little between pieces. That suits the goddesses better than anything else we make, since they are the most heavily ornamented figures most households keep. Keep them dry, and lift them by the base rather than by the jewellery. An antique finish is the quieter alternative and suits a mother who finds bright gold too much.

Ordering, and what she is called

Mother's Day falls on the second Sunday of May, so it moves each year and arrives earlier than people expect. Most of these are posted rather than handed over, usually by a daughter or a son living in another city, so order in the week before rather than the week of. Every piece is checked at our own warehouse before it goes out, and everything ships in our own packaging, which is made to be opened rather than merely to survive the journey. When you are not in the room, that packaging is the whole of the presentation.

She is Maa, Amma, Aai, Ammi or Mummy depending on where the family is from, and it is the same decision under all of them. For the wider range, start from the deity a household keeps, or from home decor for the parts of the house that are hers and not devotional at all. For several matching pieces, send the count and the date through the bulk order enquiry page.