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Malini Banerjee profile imageMalini Banerjee

From chocolates to gourmet items, a mix of sweet and savoury and even fashion collabs, the Diwali hamper’s evolution has the modern-day consumer in mind

Here’s how the Diwali hamper has evolved over the years

While the quintessential dry fruits from the days of yore have become a bit of a clichè, the Diwali hamper now has elevated, thoughtful options to include the mindful consumers of modern times

“As a child growing up in Hyderabad, during Diwali, I recall my grandmother used to prepare laddoos, murukkus and coconut barfis and an assortment of 20 different things that she would make and set out on thalis to distribute within the neighbourhood—one thali for everybody. But to make such a huge volume of dishes alone was not easy and the neighbours joined in to help. While chatting with each other, they would roll the laddoos and fry the murukkus and those same items would be gifted to them. The favour was then returned during a different celebration—cakes for Christmas or biryani during Bakri Id. It was a sort of pure exchange of dishes from your house to theirs. It wasn’t gifting as much as it was sharing delicacies,” remembers corporate chef Ravitej Nath, 2015 National Award winner for Best Chef in India.

Nostalgia and food

City and region-specific Diwali gifts were different. Author and food blogger Kalyan Karmakar recalls Diwali being more about “faral” which included everything from kaju barfis, chaklis and soan papdis. “But with the advent of corporate gifting and more boutiques and cafes, the focus changed to more international goods, chocolates, cheeses et al,” he says.

For many, Diwali always meant an overload of mithai and more.  Assad Dadan

For many, Diwali always meant an overload of mithai and more.

Assad Dadan

Dry fruits sent to near and dear ones for Diwali meant that one would be well-stocked for the winter months as well. 

Dry fruits sent to near and dear ones for Diwali meant that one would be well-stocked for the winter months as well. 

Diwali gifts slowly became a beast straddling the grey area between a gift to share joy or one given to appease the client or perhaps even subtly “incentivise” a powerful official. Culinary historian Pritha Sen has an amusing anecdote from her childhood days growing up as a daughter of a railway official in a small town. “I remember my father being very displeased and almost insulted with the hampers that had been given out once, especially since it was pushed as a gift for the ‘little ones’. My mother said they seemed like harmless cakes for the children. But as we later found out, what my mother had presumed to be innocuous cakes turned out to have money baked into them!” she laughs.

Personalisation and evolution

While that may have been a one-off exaggeration, the Diwali gift tray was definitely evolving. It was slowly becoming an entity that was more about the giver than the receiver. “The whole gifting culture in India, especially in North India, had, unfortunately, turned into a rather ostentatious race of one-upmanship. With the amount of single-use plastic in gifting, it was not very good for the environment either,” adds Nidhi Bansal, co-founder of Highlife Gifting, a company that Bansal and Nath founded over the pandemic to address the same issue.

Bansal and Nath now address the idea of gifting as a bespoke concept curated to the giver’s identity. Recently while creating gifts on behalf of a real estate company they found the company would have gone for flowers and Ferrero Rocher. “We decided to dig deep and learn about the company. We were able to trace coffee from the founder’s village along with craft from the local artisans, and ragi laddoos, with ragi being the crop that is grown in the region where he was from,” adds Nath.

“MORE THAN EXPENSIVE OPTIONS MORE PEOPLE WANT A CURATED HAMPER THAT IS CUSTOMISED TOWARDS A RECEIVERS PERSONALITY OR LIKES AND DISLIKES AND FOCUS MORE ON HOMEGROWN BRANDS A GIFT IS SPECIAL WHEN IT SHOWS THAT YOU HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT WHO YOU ARE GIFTING IT TO”

Manushree Choudhary

Homegrown and close to the roots


Ragi, amaranth and other varieties of millets are a lot more popular in a Diwali hamper now. “2023 is going to be the year of millets and is being promoted not just because they are known to be nutritionally diverse but also because millets are better for the environment. That is why we have made it a point to use ragi or puffed amaranth in many of our sweets along with nutritionally dense seeds and nuts,” says Niriksha Reddy, junior sous chef of ITC Windsor in Bengaluru.

Puffed amaranth is something even Sequel and Noon’s Vanika Choudhary is using in her nostalgia-ridden Diwali hampers with besan ka laddoo. The traditional ghee-soaked besan ka laddoo is being given a spin with puffed amaranth, pumpkin seed chikki and coconut sugar. Also part of her hamper is a hot sauce made out of fermented Kashmiri chillies from her home state.

While sweets and savouries still remain a hot favourite for the Diwali hamper, the contents have now been diversified into things such as lotus stem chips and assorted Asian dips to go along with it  Kunal Palkar

While sweets and savouries still remain a hot favourite for the Diwali hamper, the contents have now been diversified into things such as lotus stem chips and assorted Asian dips to go along with it

Kunal Palkar

According to the founder of gifting company The Good Knot, people are more inclined towards personalised, curated options than expensive ones

According to the founder of gifting company The Good Knot, people are more inclined towards personalised, curated options than expensive ones

Something fermented for Diwali?


“The reason why I love fermentation is that it has always been part of our culture. My grandmother used to make 30 different kinds of pickles round the year that were lacto-fermented in the sun in earthen pots and it is our way of carrying over one season’s produce to another,” adds Choudhary.Karmakar attributes the acceptance of fermented condiments and pickles as a part of Diwali hampers because of the inherent inclusive nature of the festival. “Something like Durga Puja or Navratri is more associated with fasting and perhaps would adhere more to what is auspicious or not. Diwali is, in many ways, more secular,” he says.

Curation over content

There is an increasing acceptance for a Diwali hamper that is not just about pomp and show but a more thoughtful one. “More than expensive options people want a curated hamper that is customised towards a receiver’s personality or likes and dislikes and focuses more on homegrown brands. It is a special gift as it shows that you have thought about who you are gifting it to,” says Jaipur-based Manushree Choudhary of The Good Knot, who specialises in curating gifts.

‘Homegrown’ is a watchword for the Diwali hamper this season—a trend that Chef Nath has personally witnessed. “There used to be a time when anything imported was considered the best. It had to be Peruvian asparagus sushi-grade fish from Tokyo and the coffee had to be Lavazza. But with the FSSAI’s ruling restricting imports and the simultaneous growth of homegrown brands making coffee, cheeses chocolates, the landscape is changing,” says Nath who was an executive chef in The Oberoi group of hotels for a decade before becoming and Corporate Chef and Director for Spice Lab Tokyo, and Director, Karma Chalets in Gurgaon.

Thoughtful packaging


The packaging challenge, too, is being addressed with homegrown brands like Kocoatrait which claims to make the world’s first sustainable zero-waste chocolate. Their chocolate wrappers are upcycled using “reclaimed cotton from garment factories’ ' and reclaimed cocoa shells making it “biodegradable, compostable and recyclable” and hampers are packed in eco-friendly palm-leaf boxes.

With a climate-conscious, environment-conscious ethos it is as if a certain warmth is coming back to Diwali. As designer Manish Malhotra who collaborated with Marriott Bonvoy to design celebratory white-and-gold boxes with “artisanal mithais and spiced nuts” for the chain’s gift hampers, puts it, “More than anything, I want the Diwali box to be about sharing love and appreciation–something that you would love to receive as well as gift.” As it well should be.

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