The fruit on a puja thali is looked at for an hour and eaten for a week. Most people buy it in the last rush of the evening before, which is the one time of year the market has the least to offer.
We grow fruit for a living, so this is the part of Diwali we get asked about. Not which gift to send — what to put on the thali, how much of it, and how to tell whether what the shop is selling is actually fresh.
A note before anything else: customs vary. Every region, every family and every priest does this a little differently, and none of what follows is a rule. It is what is commonly done, and what we know about the fruit itself.
Which fruits are commonly offered
There is no fixed list. What almost every tradition agrees on is that the fruit should be whole, unblemished and in season — which in practice narrows it to what the hills and fields are actually producing in late October.
| Fruit | Why it appears on the thali |
|---|---|
| Apple | In season, holds its shape and colour through a long evening, and keeps afterwards. The most common fruit on a Diwali thali. |
| Pomegranate | At its peak in October. Deep red, and it sits well among diyas and marigold. |
| Banana | Offered nearly everywhere, often still on the stem. Also the first thing to bruise, so buy it last. |
| Sugarcane | Strongly associated with the season and with Lakshmi Puja in much of north and east India. |
| Singhara | Water chestnut, in season right at Diwali. Common in the north. |
| Custard apple | Sitaphal, at its best in exactly these weeks. |
| Guava | Widely offered, in season, and holds up for days afterwards. |
| Coconut | Whole, unbroken, usually central to the thali rather than counted among the fruits. |
How many, and how much
Many households offer five kinds of fruit. Some offer three, some seven — an odd number is the usual instinct. Ask the elders in your family rather than the internet; they will have a version they have followed for decades and that one is the right one for your house.
The practical part nobody mentions: buy what you can eat. The fruit comes off the thali and becomes prasad. It gets cut and shared with the household and with whoever visits over the next few days. Buying a mountain of it for display means throwing fruit away in a week, which sits badly with most people's sense of the festival.
It is looked at for an hour and eaten for a week. Buy for the week.
When to buy
| When | What to do |
|---|---|
| A week before | Fine for apples and pomegranate, which keep. Too early for banana, custard apple or guava. |
| Two to three days before | The sweet spot for most things. Fruit has time to come to room temperature and you are not choosing from leftovers. |
| The day before | Banana, singhara, sugarcane. Anything soft or anything that should look freshly cut. |
| Puja day | Avoid. You will be buying whatever the market has left after everyone else has picked through it. |
How to tell good fruit from fruit that looks good
This is where it helps to have grown the stuff. Four things, and none of them need any expertise:
- Pick it up. Good fruit is heavy for its size. Light means it has dried out, which happens in storage.
- Press the shoulders. The top, near the stem, is where fruit goes first. Firm there means firm everywhere.
- Look at the stem end. A green, intact stem means recently picked. A dry, blackened or missing stem means it has been sitting a while.
- Feel the skin. If it is slippery or squeaky-shiny, that is a coating.
A shiny apple is not a fresh apple
Most apples sold in India are coated with food-grade wax. It is legal and it is not dangerous. What it does is make fruit look glossy and last longer in cold storage — which means that mirror shine is often a sign the apple has been in a warehouse for months, not that it came off a tree last week. To check: run it under hot water and rub it, or scrape the skin with the back of a spoon. A whitish residue is wax. An apple that was picked recently is matte and slightly uneven, and it will not reflect the light back at you.
This matters more for puja fruit than for anything else you buy, because the fruit goes on the thali whole and uncut, skin outwards, and then it is eaten with the skin on as prasad.
What is actually in season at Diwali
Diwali 2026 falls on 8 November. In Himachal that is the very end of the apple year. Our highest orchards — between 9,000 and 12,000 feet, in Kinnaur and Upper Shimla — are the last to ripen and are picked through the second half of October.
Those weeks matter. Up at that height the nights are already freezing, and that cold is what leaves the sugar in the fruit and the deep red in the skin. It is the same variety that was picked lower down in August, and it does not taste the same.
So an apple bought for a Diwali thali can genuinely be one that was on a tree that fortnight, rather than one that came out of a cold store. That is unusual, and it only holds for a few weeks a year.
After the puja
Cut it and share it. Keep what is left in the fridge — apples and pomegranate in the crisper drawer, not the door, where they will hold for weeks. Keep bananas away from everything else; they give off a gas that ripens whatever is near them far too fast, and they will take your apples down with them.
Picked in October, on your thali in November
Red Royal and Golden from the last and highest orchards of our 2026 harvest. No wax, no colour spray, no cold storage — picked after you order and sent straight down the hill.
See what's in seasonCommon questions
Which fruits are offered in Lakshmi Puja?
Customs vary, but most commonly whatever is fresh and in season — apple, pomegranate, banana, custard apple, guava, singhara and sugarcane, usually with a whole coconut. Condition matters more than variety in nearly every tradition.
How many fruits should be offered?
Five kinds is common, three and seven also. Follow what your family has always done. Beyond the count, buy a quantity the household will actually eat as prasad.
Should the fruit be whole or cut?
Whole and uncut for the puja itself, washed and placed on the thali intact, then cut and shared afterwards.
When should I buy fruit for Diwali?
Two to three days before for most things, the day before for anything soft. Not on puja day, when you are picking from what is left.
Is a shiny apple a fresh apple?
Often the opposite. Gloss usually comes from a wax coating applied for storage. Recently picked fruit is matte.
Which fruits are in season in India at Diwali?
Apples, pomegranate, persimmon, guava, custard apple and sugarcane, with the first winter oranges in some years. Diwali sits at the close of the Himachal apple harvest.
Written at our orchards in Pujarli, Upper Shimla and in Kinnaur, Himachal Pradesh. We grow apples, pears, persimmon and pomegranate and send them out picked to order — no wax, no cold storage. Rituals differ from house to house; we have written what is commonly done, not what must be done. Orchards Box
