Golu: the Navratri doll display of South India

Golu (also written Kolu, and called Bommai Kolu, "the court of dolls", in Tamil) is a Navratri display of dolls arranged on steps at home. It is a Tamil custom at heart, kept as Bommala Koluvu in Andhra Pradesh and Gombe Habba in Karnataka, and Tamil and Telugu families take it with them wherever they live, Kolkata included. For nine nights the display is the centre of the house: a lamp is lit before it, songs are sung, and neighbours come visiting.

In 2026 Navratri begins on Sunday 11 October, the day after Mahalaya Amavasya, so most Golus go up that morning and stay until Vijayadashami. Families follow their own panchang for the exact days.

The steps

A Golu is built on an odd number of steps (padi): three, five, seven, nine, occasionally eleven. Wooden or metal frames are covered with a white or coloured cloth. The arrangement follows a loose order, from the divine at the top to the everyday at the bottom:

• Top steps: the deities, often with a kalasam (a pot topped with a coconut) for the Goddess, and figures of Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati.
• Middle steps: saints, sages and scenes from the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the Dashavatara (Vishnu's ten forms).
• Lower steps: ordinary life: weddings, markets, musicians, a village, animals and birds.

Many families also build a "park" on the floor in front: a pond made from a mirror, sown mustard or ragi sprouting into a lawn, little houses and toy trains. Children often take charge of this part.

The dolls

Golu dolls (bommai) are traditionally clay or wood, painted by hand. Marapachi dolls, a carved wooden couple, are usually the first to go up; many are heirlooms handed from mother to daughter and dressed in new clothes each year. Karnataka's Gombe Habba gives pride of place to a pattada gombe, a royal couple. Families add one new doll a year, so a long-kept Golu becomes a record of the family's own history.

Doll markets fill up in the weeks before Navratri, most famously around the temple streets of Mylapore in Chennai. Andhra's Kondapalli wooden toys and Karnataka's lacquered Channapatna toys are favourites.

Also readNavratri and Dussehra across India

The nine evenings

Each evening the lamp is lit, a short puja is done, and a neivedyam (food offering) is made. The classic offering is sundal, boiled chickpeas, black-eyed peas, green gram or peanuts tempered with mustard seeds, curry leaves and grated coconut, a different one each day in many homes.

Then the visiting begins. Women and girls go from house to house, look at each Golu, sing a song or two (the classical repertoire has many Navaratri kritis), and are given thamboolam: betel leaves and areca nuts, turmeric and kumkum, a fruit or coconut, and often a small gift such as a blouse piece, bangles or a steel box. Children are dressed up and asked to sing.

Saraswati Puja and Vijayadashami

On Navami, books and musical instruments are placed before the Goddess for Saraswati Puja and Ayudha Puja, and are not used until the next morning. On Vijayadashami, the books are taken back with a prayer, and in the evening many families lay one doll down to put the Golu to sleep. The dolls are packed away carefully over the next day, wrapped in paper or cloth, until next year.

Golu and Durga Puja

Golu and Bengal's Durga Puja meet in the same goddess and the same nine nights, but one is a home-made world of dolls and the other is a public festival in pandals. In Kolkata, South Indian families often keep a Golu at home and still go out pandal hopping in the evenings: the Kolkata guide shows when each pandal is quietest. See also Navratri across India and Navratri in Kolkata.