The Night Before: Chhoti Diwali and Kali Chaudas

Tonight is Chhoti Diwali in most of the north, Kali Chaudas in Gujarat and much of the west, and Bhoot Chaturdashi in Bengal — the night of fourteen lamps and fourteen leafy greens. One date, three quite different evenings.

Which one you are dressing for

Chhoti Diwali is the warm-up: a few lamps, the house being finished, family at home. Comfortable and festive. A kurti, a co-ord set, or a cotton saree does it.

Kali Chaudas and Bhoot Chaturdashi are quieter, older and a little darker in mood — lamps set at the threshold and the corners of the house rather than a party. Simple cloth suits the evening better than anything worked.

And in Bengal, tomorrow night is Kali Puja, not Lakshmi Puja — the same amavasya, a different goddess and a much later night. If you are going to a pandal rather than staying home, dress for standing and for a crowd: see dressing for lamps, which applies doubly.

The practical half

Tonight is the night the house gets cleaned, the lamps get filled and the rangoli gets drawn, which involves kneeling on a floor with oil and colour in both hands. Wear the thing you do not mind. Every year somebody does the alpona in tomorrow's saree.

If you want to be dressed and still useful: a salwar suit with the dupatta off, or palazzos with a kurti.

Tomorrow is the one that counts

Lay it out tonight, including the blouse, the petticoat, the pins and the fall. The commonest Diwali-evening disaster is discovering at six o'clock that the blouse from last year no longer fits, when every tailor in the city is shut.

If that is where you are: a ready-to-wear designer saree, a crop-top lehenga or an Anarkali needs no tailor at all.

The full week is in the six-week plan.