How to do Ganesh Chaturthi at home in Bengaluru

The idol is the small part of the bill. A clay idol up to a foot was ₹650 to ₹950 at the stalls in Jayanagar and Rajarajeshwari Nagar in 2025. The rest depends on what you spend on the mantap.

About three in four of the families who gave mytribe a budget for Ganesha decoration in 2026 wanted to spend ₹10,000 or less. At that money the decorators we work with mostly quote artificial flowers, or you buy real ones and put them up yourselves.

In between, there's help we found no price for. A flower seller near you, or someone local who ties mantaps, can put up flowers you've bought. A family in JP Nagar wrote to us offering their own stand and flowers to bring the cost down (their request is below). Ask for the tying as one number.

Not in these sums: the pooja items from a pooja store (question 6), Gowri's idol and baginas (question 7), and a priest (question 5). We have no shop's price for these, or a priest's fee we can stand behind.

1. July

   Order a hand-made or Pen-style clay idol, if you want one: in 2025 the Pen-style idols were on show in HSR Layout from 12 July. Pick a height that suits your visarjan (question 3).

2. By early August

   Book the priest, with the time he'll reach you on Saturday 4 September.

3. By mid-August

   Book the decorator for Friday 3 September, Gowri day, so the mantap is up for both. Give him the idol's height and say whether you have a stand.

4. The week before

   Buy the idol if it's from a stall, the pooja items and the Gowri things.

5. Friday 3 September

   Gowri habba. The mantap goes up, and the married women of the house do the Gowri pooja.

6. Saturday 4 September, 11:05 am to 12:25 pm

   Ganesh Chaturthi. The midday window for the Ganesha pooja in Bengaluru.

7. Sunday 5 September

   The visarjan, for families who keep him a day and a half.

8. Tuesday 14 September

   Anant Chaturdashi, the last visarjan day.

Check the dates against your family's calendar. Drik Panchang's page for 2027 gives Saturday 4 September, and one of its monthly lists gives the 3rd.

Finding the tank: the city puts the list online each year. In 2026 it set up 42 immersion tanks at lake premises and ran 659 mobile tanks that go ward to ward, and listed every spot on the Greater Bengaluru Authority's website and behind a QR code. Officials said latecomers would still be let in.

At home: lower him into the bucket, let the clay settle, and pour the water and the clay into your plants or a pot. In 2025 the city asked its officials to encourage exactly this for small clay idols.

A 2 ft idol is heavy. One family who wrote to us said theirs weighed about 15 kg. Before you buy, plan who carries it, whether it fits the car boot and the lift, and how it gets to the tank.

The clay itself costs makers little: about ₹7 to ₹10 a kg in 2025.

A day and a half, three, five and seven days are all common, and eleven is the full run, to Anant Chaturdashi on Tuesday 14 September 2027. Three days is the commonest in the requests families sent mytribe in 2026: about a third of those that said how long asked for three, and a quarter for five.

The six steps of the short pooja, from BhaktiBharat's guide to doing it without a priest:

• Invite Ganesha into the idol (avahana).
• Offer flowers (pushpa).
• Offer incense (dhupa).
• Wave the lamp (dipa).
• Offer the food (naivedya).
• Bow (namaskara).

The full pooja has sixteen steps, and BhaktiBharat lists them in English. After the first day, it's a pooja in the morning and one in the evening. Gowri's, the day before, is done by the married women of the house.

If you book a priest, ask what time he'll reach you and how many homes he's doing before yours: the preferred time for the pooja on Chaturthi is 11:05 am to 12:25 pm, so he can't reach many homes in it. Priests here work by language and tradition, so find one who does it your family's way, through your community association or the temple you go to. Our housewarming guide explains the words in a priest's quote, like samagri and dakshina.

From a pooja store:

• Turmeric and kumkum
• Sandalwood paste or powder
• Agarbatti and camphor
• A ghee lamp with cotton wicks
• Betel leaves and nut, and a coconut
• A red cloth for the stool or the plank
• 21 blades of durva grass
• Milk, curd, ghee, honey and sugar, for bathing the idol

That's BhaktiBharat's list for a pooja at home. We found no shop's price for these to quote.

Wholesale costs far less than a shop, if you buy a lot. In 2025 tube roses were ₹120 to ₹150 a kg wholesale at KR Market and ₹400 in the shops of Basavanagudi and Jayanagar. Prices also swing from year to year: jasmine touched ₹3,800 a kg on the Sunday before Gowri-Ganesha in 2025, and was ₹1,000 at KR Market on festival day in 2026.

The naivedya follows your family: modak in a Marathi home, kadubu in a Kannada one, kozhukattai in a Tamil one, undrallu in a Telugu one.

What goes in a bagina: turmeric, kumkum, bangles, beads, a blouse piece, a coconut, grains and jaggery sweets. Count the married women you'll invite before you shop.

If Gowri sits in the mantap too, have the decorator come on Gowri day. A family in Hebbal wrote to us wanting their decoration done on 13 September 2026, which was Gowri day. Book that day early (question 2).

We found no current price for a Gowri idol or a bagina. Ask where you buy Ganesha whether they make Gowri too.

Why real flowers add so much: a whole backdrop takes many kilos, bought in festival week. That's far more than the two kilos or so in a small home mantap (question 6), and the decorator's hours to tie them are in it too. One Bengaluru decorator told us marigold is about ₹200 a kg normally and ₹600 to ₹800 in festival season. Some decorators call real flowers original flowers.

From ₹15,000 the money goes into what's built around the idol. Dream Party Link brings exactly the list of items agreed before the job: how many garlands, which flower, how much area. Dream Decor sells a look instead. You pick one of its twelve designs, or send a picture and it rebuilds it in artificial flowers.

What gets added. Transport, decorating the idol itself, and props such as brass lamps, which start at about ₹600 a piece at Dream Party Link. Give the decorator the idol's height and say whether you have a stand: Shubham Parties' ₹50,000 wooden mantap, 8 by 8 ft, has no platform for the idol, and he adds a table for ₹1,000.

Ask whether the festival flower price is already in. Dream Decor builds it into its first quote and adds nothing for flowers later. Dream Party Link says a flower quote given long before the date won't hold. Mahinava Events and Sky7 Events both say their flower prices go up around festivals, for about a week at Mahinava.

Travel. Free within 20 km of Wilson Garden at Dream Party Link, then ₹1,000 to ₹2,000. In the price within 30 km at Shubham Parties, and within about 10 to 15 km of Whitefield at Mahinava Events. Dream Decor adds it as a line of its own, about ₹1,000 to ₹1,500 in the city and ₹3,000 to ₹4,000 on the outskirts. Sky7 Events quotes one all-in price across Bengaluru.

Ask who clears the fresh flowers after the visarjan. Mahinava Events takes it down and clears up, in her quote. Dream Decor takes its own pieces back and leaves the fresh flowers for you, and Shubham Parties leaves the flowers too. Sky7 Events collects the structure, stands and lights the next day. Ask him and Dream Party Link about the flowers.