Onam gift hamper: an urli and sunflower candle chest for the pookalam evening, made in India and sent to Kerala or anywhereOnam gift hamper: an urli and sunflower candle chest for the pookalam evening, made in India and sent to Kerala or anywhere

The urli belongs at Onam

Walk into a Malayali home at Onam and you will find a pookalam on the floor at the entrance, and very often an urli nearby: the wide, shallow bowl filled with water and floating flowers. Our Urli Candles keep that shape and trade the water for a flame. A pair of flower-shaped urli bowls with gold rims, filled with gold-flecked soy wax and topped with a yellow wax sunflower, at Rs 699. That is the heart of an Onam candle hamper.

On Raajkosh you build the rest in the gift chest builder: choose 3 to 6 handmade soy candles, then the chest style, a ribbon and your message, and we deliver it across India, Kerala included. Each piece is charged at its shop price, plus the chest style. 4 or more pieces: 10% off the pieces. The builder shows the full price before checkout; the totals here are for the pieces only.

Thiruvonam falls in August or September. If you are reading this in another month, plan for the next one.

Three Onam chests with their totals

Add the chest style to each. With a fourth piece, 10% comes off all four.

Pookalam colours is yellow, gold, pink and ivory: the urli pair, ten ivory tealights topped with yellow wax sunflowers, and a Blossom Candle ringed with pink and yellow wax flowers. Set the tealights in a curve around the edge of the pookalam once the flowers are laid.

The tharavad chest is for grandparents and the family home: six terracotta-red diyas that hold wax instead of oil, a layered lotus, and four red matki pots with hand-painted vines.

A friend far from Kerala is for the Malayali colleague in Delhi or Mumbai who cannot get home this year. The urli pair is a small piece of home, the daisy tealights and the two peonies brighten a rented flat.

Placing candles near a pookalam

• Keep flames off the flowers. Pookalam petals dry out over the day. Set candles on the floor around the edge, on a plate or a tile, not among the petals.
• Tealights are the easiest. They sit in their own clear cups, so wax does not drip on the floor or the rangoli.
• The urli goes at the doorway, on a low stool, as it would with water and flowers.
• Never leave a lit candle by the entrance when children are running in and out; light them in the evening when the family is home.

The sadya, the kasavu and the nilavilakku

An Onam hamper in Kerala often means an Onam kit of rice, payasam mix and banana chips, a kasavu saree or mundu, or a brass nilavilakku. We make none of those; our chest is only candles. Buy the food kit from a Kerala grocer or online store, the kasavu from a handloom shop, and the nilavilakku from a brass shop. The candle chest is the part that brightens the evening and stays on the shelf until the next Onam.

For a company sending Onam gifts to a team, see our corporate gifts in Kochi page or ask for a corporate quote from 10 gifts. Every other chest starts on our gift hampers page.

Ordering for Thiruvonam

We make the candles in Jalandhar and ship across India, Kerala included. Orders dispatch in 24 to 48 hours and arrive 2 to 7 days after dispatch. We do not promise a delivery date, so order well before Thiruvonam and check the estimate for the pincode on the product page. Orders of Rs 999 or more ship free, which every chest above clears on the pieces alone; below that, Rs 79.

Payment is prepaid only (UPI, card, net banking or wallet); there is no cash on delivery. Report any damage within 24 hours of delivery for a replacement or refund.

And for the card: trim each wick to about 5 mm, keep each burn to 3 to 4 hours, and never leave a candle burning alone.