Set Out a Vishukkani for Good Luck at First Light / 🇮🇳 India

What would you like your first sight of a new year to be? At Vishu, in Kerala, people prepare a display of auspicious things and look at it on waking. Rice and fruit give it the feeling of a harvest, flowers add a spot of colour and a mirror catches the light. For a small arrangement at home, choose a few things rather than trying to fill the whole table. A shallow bowl lets the individual shapes stay visible. Set it out the previous evening, in a place you can reach safely in the morning, and let the first look be part of your day before you reach for your phone.

1. Choose a stable table and put down a shallow bowl. Add a little dry rice and arrange fruit and flowers so that you can see each part.
2. Set a small standing mirror behind the bowl, with a secure base. Turn it slightly until it catches the colours rather than reflecting the whole room.
3. Leave the arrangement ready for morning. When you wake up, go to it with your eyes open and take a few slow breaths while you look.
4. Choose one thing you want to welcome in this new period. When the display has served its purpose, put the ingredients away and enjoy the fruit.

Vishu marks the solar New Year in Kerala and usually falls in mid-April. Vishukkani is the first sight prepared for that morning. A traditional arrangement may use an uruli, a shallow vessel made from bell metal, and display rice, golden cucumber, fruit, flowers and a mirror before an image of Krishna. The golden konna flowers are associated with the season and prosperity. The display can also be lit with a traditional lamp. For the home arrangement here, morning light is enough to bring out the colours and the reflection. The detail to carry over is the order of the experience: prepare it at night, then let it be the first scene you give your attention to in the morning.