These displays are typically thematic, narrating a legend from a Hindu text to court life, weddings, everyday scenes, and miniature kitchen utensils.

It is a part of the annual Dasara-Vijayadasami Hindu festival where young girls and women display dolls, figurine, court life, everyday scenes along with the divine presence of the goddesses Saraswati, Parvati and Lakshmi in the Tamil, Kannada, and Telugu households during Navaratri, the nine nights.

[4] The dolls are predominantly displayed with depictions from Hindu mythological texts, court life, royal procession, ratha yatra, weddings, baby showers, everyday scenes, miniature kitchen utensils, anything a little girl would have played with.

It is a traditional practice to have wooden figurines of the bride and groom together, called 'Marapacchi Bommai' or 'Pattada Gombe', usually made of sandalwood, teak or rosewood or dried coconut and decorated with new clothes each year before being displayed on the golu.

[9] These dolls come as couples dressed in their wedding attire, depicting husband and wife symbolizing prosperity and fertility and the start of the bride's golu collection.

[9] The Navaratri, then called Mahanavami, were state celebrations during which royalty, through numerous secular and religious rituals, renewed its alliances with its vassals, established its prestige among its subjects and beyond borders, and legitimized the exercise of its power.

[9] In some parts of Andhra Pradesh, there is a still followed tradition of displaying a golu also during the celebrations of Makara Sankranti (in January),[9] which takes the name saṅkrānti bommala koluvu (సంక్రాంతి బొమ్మల కొలువు) in Telugu.

Bommala koluvu has become an element of South Indian ethos, especially of the heir states of the Vijayanagara and Nayak era (Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh).

This diffusion occurred independently of these royal courts and regions, from the Madrasian bourgeoisie of upper castes (Chettiars, Iyers, Iyengars, etc.)

Since then, golu has experienced a continuous and even wider diffusion, particularly in line with logic of social mobility among the urban middle and working classes.

[9] With its modern reintroduction in a context far removed from the monarchy, the practice of Golu took on a purely religious dimension in Tamil Nadu, where Koluvu has no apparent links with royalty, and is rather a miniature reproduction of the world, of the totality, and its consecration to the Devi, from whom protection is sought.

Some dolls also depict various freedom fighters of the Indian Independence Movement and characters like Spider-Man and Superman considering the need to cater to the younger audience.

Such as in Vilacheri, on the outskirt of Madurai in Southern Tamil Nadu, where local potters, who notably made terracotta horses (puravi) for the worship of Ayyanar, retrained in making koluvu figurines around the 1960s, and have since been recognized in their new field of work.

Like the Golu, the practice of the Christmas Crib was for a long time limited to the wealthy social strata of South Indian Christians (especially the Catholics) and to the churches.

With urbanisation and the spread of cultural practices and consumption patterns hitherto restricted to the affluent social classes, demand for Christmas crib figures has risen sharply.