Okay so — varalakshmi pooja decor. At our house. I should just start there because if I start with some grand statement about tradition I will sound like a brochure, and I am not a brochure, I am just a person who has now done this four times and still, STILL, manages to mess something up every single year. Which, actually, maybe that is the point? No. Forget the philosophy. Let me tell you what we do. And what went wrong. Because the wrong parts are the useful parts, I have found.
First year. Right. First year I went completely overboard. I mean completely. I saw a photo — one of those photos where the light is perfect and there is not a single thing out of place and you can tell nobody actually lives in that room — and I thought, yes, ours must look like that. So I spent, I kid you not, three hours in the bazaar. Three. I bought a backdrop thing, I bought extra lights, I bought a garland that was so long it touched the floor, I bought… I do not even remember what else. Ammi came home, looked at the dining table covered in shopping bags, and just said, “Beta, yeh sab kis liye?” And I had no good answer. I really did not. I just shrugged. Because what was I going to say, “for the photo, Ammi”? There was no photo. Nobody was taking a photo.
Anyway, that year was a mess, and the year after that — no wait. Hold on. Let me get this straight, because I keep mixing up the years. The complicated year was two years ago? Or three? Hmm. It was the year Shazia aunty’s daughter got married, because Shazia aunty came over that evening and said the corner looked “bohot pyara” and I was standing there thinking, pyara? Half the garland is sliding off. But she meant it, I think. Or she was being polite. With Shazia aunty you can never quite tell, she is polite about everything, even about my cooking, which is… not good. Not good at all. Anyway.
So. Four things. That is all. Four things that actually work, in our house, after all the trial and error.
Way 1: Varalakshmi Pooja Decor Starts the Night Before
Way 1: Dress the idol the night before, or regret it at 6 am
I cannot stress this enough. Actually I can, and I will, because I have now done it both ways and one way is a disaster. The disaster way is: morning, sleepy, silk saree, idol, safety pins everywhere, milk boiling over in the kitchen at the same time. That happened. The milk — oh God, the milk smell stayed in the kitchen all day, and Ammi had to clean the stove, and I was still trying to fix a pleat that would NOT stay. The pleat kept slipping. Slipping, slipping. I pinned it, it slipped. I pinned it again, it slipped again. You know that feeling? When you are fighting with a piece of cloth and the cloth is winning? That.
Night before. That is the fix. We do it the night before now, every year, no exceptions, even if guests are over and it feels weird to be setting up a pooja corner while people are drinking chai in the next room. So what. It feels weird for ten minutes and then it is done and the morning is calm. Calm! Imagine that.
The saree. Small red silk one. Not the big heavy one, because — and this took me embarrassingly long to figure out — a big heavy saree on a small idol just… eats her. She disappears. You cannot see the face. What is the point of a beautiful face if it is buried under six yards of silk? None. So small saree, Rs 850, from the little shop near the chowk. And listen, the shopkeeper first showed me one for Rs 2,200. Rs 2,200! I almost said yes, I was in a hurry, my phone was ringing, and then Ammi called — actual phone call, right at that moment, about something completely different, about dahi, I think — and that interrupted me enough that I said “I will think about it” and walked out. Thank God for dahi. The Rs 850 one has a gold border, not too shiny, and it stays. Two pins at the back. Done.
Jewellery after the saree. After! Not before. Before is how you end up with a necklace tangled in pleats for twenty minutes while everyone waits and the chai gets cold. One necklace, earrings, small nose pin. That is it. She does not need to look like a jewellery shop. Ammi says she looks “pleased” like that. Pleased. I like that word for it. Pleased, not perfect.
Way 2: Fresh Marigolds and Jasmine, Tied Loosely
Way 2: Flowers fresh that morning, and for heaven’s sake tie them loosely
Flowers. Okay. Rule number one, which I broke once and will never break again: do not buy them the day before and keep them in the fridge. I did that. I thought I was being smart, being prepared, being organised — look at me, so organised — and by morning half the marigolds looked… tired. Like, genuinely sad. Droopy. Ammi did not even scold me, she just quietly picked out the fresh ones and put the sad ones in a separate bowl, and that silence was worse than scolding, honestly. I felt guilty the whole day. The whole day! Over flowers!
So now: morning, flower stall, around 8. Two orange marigold garlands, one yellow, one long jasmine string. Usually Rs 400, Rs 450, Rs 500, somewhere in there. One year it was Rs 600 because it had rained and there were fewer marigolds, and I grumbled all the way home — out loud, to myself, like a grumpy old man — and then I put them up and completely forgot about the money. Completely. Funny, that. The money matters until the flowers are up, and then it does not matter at all.
And here is the thing nobody told me, and I had to learn by breaking a garland: tie them LOOSELY. Loose! I used to pull them tight because tight looks neat in my head, neat and tidy, and then — snap. Right in the middle. Flowers everywhere. On the floor. In my hair, I swear, there was a marigold in my hair. Shazia aunty laughed so hard she had to sit down on the sofa. She was holding her stomach. I was standing there covered in flowers. It was funny afterwards, but at the time? At the time I wanted the floor to swallow me.
Loose drapes better anyway. It falls in a soft curve. The jasmine goes on top of the marigolds, not underneath, because underneath you cannot see it, and then why did you even buy jasmine? Exactly. No reason. Top. Always top.
This, to me, this is what good varalakshmi pooja decor actually is. Not the expensive backdrop thing from year one — that thing is still in a cupboard somewhere, I think, gathering dust, serving as a warning — just fresh flowers, hung with patience, smelling like marigold and jasmine together. That smell. That smell IS the festival for me. More than agarbatti, more than anything. You walk in and you smell it and you know, okay, today is the day.
Way 3: Diyas on a Tray, Oil Halfway, Lit Last
Way 3: Diyas on a tray, oil halfway, and light them LAST
Diyas. I love diyas and I am also slightly scared of them, and if you think that is contradictory you have never spilled hot oil on your own hand. Which I have. Two years ago — or was it three? No, this one was definitely two years ago, because it was the same year as the milk incident? No, different year. Ugh, I keep doing this. Okay, does not matter. The year of the oil. I filled a diya right to the brim, like an idiot, like a complete idiot, carried it across the room like it was a cup of tea, and — splash. Oil on my hand, oil on the wooden base, one diya tipped over. Nothing caught fire, nobody got hurt, but Ammi gave me The Look. You know The Look? The one that says “I told you so” without a single word being spoken? That look. I got that look for the rest of the day.
Tray. Always a tray. Oil halfway, never full. Fourteen small brass diyas in a row along the front of the wooden base. Brass, because in our house that is the tradition, and because they shine, and because they last. Ours were Rs 1,200 for twelve from the bartan shop, and we added two more later when one… no, we added two because fourteen just looked better in a row than twelve did. Twelve left a gap. Fourteen filled the base exactly. That kind of detail matters, I have learned. The gap matters. People notice gaps, even if they do not say so.
And light them last. LAST. After everything else is done, after the garlands are up, after the plates are set, after you have stopped reaching over things. Because reaching over a lit flame to fix a garland is another mistake I have made — yes, another one, I am a slow learner, I admit it — and it is not a mistake you want to make twice. Also, steel plate under the row. Because even careful people spill a drop. Our wooden base still has one faint oil mark from that year. Ammi says it adds character. I say it is a reminder. We are both right, probably.
Way 4: Plates at the Side, One Plate for Offering
Way 4: Plates at the side, not in front, and one plate just for offering
Last one. Plates. Kumkum, turmeric, flowers, sweets. And here is my old mistake, my classic mistake: I used to put the big plate right in front, dead centre, blocking everything, because in my head centre = important. And Ammi would just… move it. Without a word. To the side. Every year. Move, move, move. Until one year I finally asked, “Ammi, why do you keep moving it?” and she said, very patiently, like she was explaining to a small child, “Because then you cannot see her feet, beta.” Oh. OH. Right. Feet. Of course.
Side. Side is the rule. One brass plate, kumkum in one small bowl, turmeric in another small bowl — not mixed together in one pile, which I did the first time, and it looked like… I do not even want to describe it, it looked like a mess, an orange-red mess — and one plate for sweets. Ladoos, usually. Ladoos are easy, everyone likes ladoos, and if we have barfi we add a few pieces. And then — and this is my favourite part, genuinely — one small plate of loose flowers. Just loose flowers. Not for show. For use. So that when someone comes in, Shazia aunty or anyone, they can take a flower and offer it themselves. That small act, that taking-a-flower act, it makes the corner feel alive. Not like a museum. Alive. Like people actually come here and do something here. Which they do. Because of the plate. Because of a plate of loose flowers. Is that not something? I think that is something.
Cost, total, because someone always asks and I would rather just say it: saree Rs 850, flowers about Rs 450, sweets maybe Rs 300 from the halwai, diyas already owned. So around Rs 1,600 for the fresh stuff, plus what we already have. Compare that to year one, when I spent over Rs 5,000 and it looked worse. Worse! More money, worse result. There should be a lesson in that, and I think I have finally learned it, mostly.
So, one practical rule to finish, the one Ammi says every year and I finally, finally believe: set it up the night before, but finish the flowers in the morning. Night work saves the morning. Morning flowers stay fresh. Nobody is running around at 6 am fighting a saree while milk boils over. That is it. That is the whole secret, if there is one. Fresh flowers, a saree that fits, diyas on a tray, plates at the side. And a corner that feels divine because someone took their time with it — slowly, with mistakes, with a marigold in their hair — not because they spent the most money on it.
These diwali decoration ideas home corners, the good ones, they are lived in. Ours is. There is still that faint oil mark on the wood, and the gap where the fourteenth diya goes, and I am keeping both. And this varalakshmi pooja decor, this year’s version, with the loose garlands and the side plates and the night-before saree — I think this is the best one yet. Not perfect. Better. Better is enough. Better is, actually, the whole point.
Pingback: Ganpati Decor at Home: 6 Ways to Feel Warm and Blessed