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The festival of lights

244 views · Published 9 October 2011 · 0:32 · Indexed 12 November 2026

Channel: Rakesh Sharma Bikaner · 2011 · People & Blogs

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The festival of lights

for majority of Indians, the quintessential Diwali lamps continue to be the plain, brick-red, budget clay diyas that are easy on the pocket, costing atleast 10 or 12 times less than the designer ones. Filled with oil, several dozens of them are left burning well past midnight for a week through which Diwali is celebrated. As far as the northern regions of the country are concerned, the maximum number of diyas get lit on Dhanteras, one of the most important days associated with Diwali, dedicated to Lakshmi, the Goddess of Wealth.
"On this day, we light up at least half a dozen Diyas all over the house to welcome the goddess," says Manoj, a Ganga shaher  Bikaner resident,. "And these are the ones we can afford, something we can buy in plenty. Those fancy looking lamps that cost a fortune are not for us."
About 20 families of potters inhabit  and each family manages to sell around 20,000 diyas in the month leading to Diwali. "We make about Rs 3,000-4,000 during this time, enough to make our ends meet, subsisting on meals that do not boast any variety," says. This is a sum that these potters make every month, creating goods of daily use like pots, surahis (goblets),Sikora , flower pots and also lamps used in temple rituals. Their earnings are almost their entire profit since expenditure on raw materials is negligible. "We have no work during the monsoon and for these two or three months we take up alternative employment as contract labourers in construction sites," says Prajapati.

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