During this Deepawali, when you light a lamp, you are not only creating a cheerful aura, but you are lighting the stove in a traders’ home. While big companies give the final push with discounts and offers, it is the small traders who need the commerce desperately, as it means the family’s livelihood.
This is the time when small traders in electronic city and surrounding villages including Neeladri, Doddatogur, Chikkatogur, Podu, Hulimangala, Begur, etc, gear up to make small profits which will see them through the lean winter times. Flowers grown locally are brought and sold by vendors on the roads, creating a colourful, brilliant show on the road. Fruits and vegetables are grown and marketed specially during this time.
Local sweet vendors, women who are brilliant cooks, use this opportunity to create mouth watering dishes, sweets, chaklis, chips, and anything else the festive mood calls for. Local boutiques and tailors study the fashion trends and insta pages to procure the best fabrics and create fashions to celebrate the new year.
This year, your hard-earned money can make life sweeter for a family near you, while you win by getting the best that money can buy.
Local made sweets are fresher and sweeter than boxed sweets which have been prepared months in advance. Locally made clothes can be altered by the obliging tailors or shops, instead of hassling for returns in online shopping. The flowers are better, fruits and fresher and the smiles of gratitude from the traders are genuine and heartfelt.
This Deepawali, provide light to a local family! Happy new year!

Chandrika Inturi
Author / Writer