On the first day, it looks almost too simple to be Ganpati.
A large plate. A thin layer of finely sifted mud. And, carefully marked on its surface, the familiar outline of Ganesha — his trunk, ears, rounded belly and little crown.
Then come the seeds.
One by one, wheat kernels are placed along the outline, with just enough space between them to allow each seed to grow. Water is sprinkled over the mud. The family recites the Gayatri Mantra 12 times.
Then they wait, and by the second day, tiny green shoots begin to appear. Over the next few days, they grow taller, slowly filling the outline. By the fifth day, the little kernels have transformed into lush green blades, tracing the unmistakable form of Ganesha.
At a certain height and angle, the effect is almost magical: Bappa has appeared, not through clay or plaster, but through something living.
For Pratiksha Marathe and her parents in Kalyan, Maharashtra, this is their Vanaspati Ganesh — a tradition that has become one of the most meaningful parts of their Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations.
The family uses mud, wheat seeds, sunlight and water to create their Ganpati, without plaster, paint or thermocol.
“It feels like therapy to create your own version of Ganesha,” says Pratiksha.
This year marks the family’s 31st year of celebrating the festival at home. What began in 1995 with a conventional idol has slowly evolved into a celebration that asks a very different question: what if bringing Ganesha home did not have to mean leaving an idol behind in nature?
A festival that began with an idol
For years, Ganesh Chaturthi in the Marathe household followed a familiar rhythm.
Pratiksha, her parents, relatives, neighbours, and close family friends would welcome Ganpati home. There would be puja, aarti, homemade modaks and laddoos, followed by visarjan on the second day.
But Pratiksha remembers another part of the festival just as vividly: the scenes that followed.
Seeing “thousands of idols lying after the visarjan on Dadar Chowpatty and many other visarjan places” made her think about what happened after the celebrations ended.
“What means the world to us is somewhere not accepted by nature. Maybe it’s time to celebrate festivals differently,” she recalls thinking.
For the Marathe family in Kalyan, their Vanaspati Ganesh has become a 31-year-old festival tradition with a different approach to visarjan.
The family first moved away from plaster of Paris idols and tried Shadu clay, or natural river clay. But even that raised questions about how completely the material returned to nature.
Then came 2020.
During the pandemic, when getting an idol was difficult, the family still wanted to preserve their decades-old tradition. That was when they turned to an idea they had encountered through their long association with Manashakti Research Centre in Lonavala.
The concept was Vanaspati Ganesh — using growing wheat seedlings to create the form of Ganesha.
Soon, it became their own annual ritual.
It starts with mud, seeds, and a little patience
Three or four days before Ganesh Chaturthi, Pratiksha’s father begins preparing the base.
He collects mud from the surrounding area, filters and sifts it, then mixes it with water and spreads roughly an inch-thick layer into a large, 18-inch plate.
Once the base is ready, Pratiksha draws a simple outline of Ganesha. Her mother sets aside good-quality wheat seeds, which are carefully placed along the outline with enough space for the shoots to grow.
Water is sprinkled over the plate as the family recites the Gayatri Mantra 12 times. For the family, all their prayers, aartis, mantras are intentional which creates a calm, positive atmosphere for the seeds to grow.
Pratiksha carefully places wheat kernels along the hand-drawn outline of Ganesha, leaving enough space for the shoots to grow.
Then the plate is placed where the plants can receive sunlight and is watered twice a day. No plaster, paint or thermocol. Just mud, seeds, sunlight and care.
And then, Bappa begins to grow
The transformation is what makes the ritual particularly fascinating for children.
On Day 1, the wheat kernels are still clearly visible.
“By the next day, tiny sprouts begin pushing through the mud. Soon, they turn green and begin growing like blades of grass,” says Pratiksha.
Slowly, the green shoots fill the entire outline. By the fifth day, the wheatgrass can grow to around a foot in length.
From a particular height and angle, the outline of Ganesha becomes strikingly clear.
Children from the neighbourhood often stop to look. Some even imagine what it would be like to make a gigantic version outdoors — a Ganpati visible from the sky.
For Pratiksha, however, its meaning goes beyond the novelty.
A celebration where nothing is left behind
The family’s two-day celebration still retains everything that makes Ganesh Chaturthi special.
Their fibre-based Ganesha idol is used for puja every year and is never immersed. There are aartis in the morning and evening, homemade modaks, laddoos, fruits, prayers, and the chanting of Ganesha’s name.
On the second day, instead of immersing an idol, they perform a symbolic visarjan by immersing a supari in water.
Instead of immersing an idol, the family performs a symbolic visarjan with a supari, while the wheatgrass is harvested and shared as prasad.
The wheatgrass completes its own cycle. It is harvested and eaten as prasad, with some also added to everyday food. The mud is either reused the following year or mixed into their house plants.
When friends and neighbours learnt about the tradition, some even began asking the family to keep aside wheatgrass for them as prasad.
Even the decorations have changed
The family’s sustainability journey does not end with the Ganpati.
Pratiksha’s father has traditionally been in charge of the decorations, and she began helping him as she grew older.
One material they consciously moved away from was thermocol.
“When I was in school, I learnt that thermocol is difficult to recycle and can become a persistent pollutant. Since then, we have increasingly relied on cardboard flowers and paper-based decorations instead,” she says.
It is a small change, but one that reflects their larger philosophy: festive does not have to mean wasteful.
What Bappa leaves behind
For Pratiksha, perhaps the most beautiful part of the Vanaspati Ganesh is what happens at the end.
The wheat that arrives as tiny seeds eventually becomes something the family can eat.
In that sense, Ganesha does not simply disappear after visarjan. He becomes part of the family in another form — returning to the body through food and, eventually, to the earth.
From cardboard flowers to paper decorations, the Marathe family has gradually found ways to make their Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations less wasteful.
The idea also connects with what Ganesha represents to the family. Pratiksha describes him as the God of intelligence, the remover of obstacles and someone whose stories offer lessons about gratitude, empathy and problem-solving.
In an age of increasing dependence on AI, she believes the festival can also be a reminder to retain our ability to think, assess situations and solve problems.
“Can we be more empathetic and grateful towards each other?” she asks.
Keeping the celebration, changing the way we celebrate
Ganesh Chaturthi is much bigger than an idol.
It is the neighbours dropping by, the aarti everyone gathers for, steaming modaks, children watching decorations come together and, in Mumbai, the unmistakable energy that takes over entire neighbourhoods.
The Marathe family does not want to take away any of that. They simply believe the celebration can evolve.
Families can make clay idols at workshops, opt for artificial ponds for visarjan, choose reusable decorations or even volunteer for beach clean-ups after the festivities.
The wheatgrass that forms their Vanaspati Ganesh is eventually harvested and eaten as prasad, completing its journey from seed to food.
“Festivals are important,” says Pratiksha. “They give a sense of purpose as a community.”
But perhaps the responsibility that comes with that joy is just as important.
The question is not whether we should celebrate. It is how we can celebrate in a way that allows both our traditions and the environment to breathe.
And perhaps that is what makes this little green Ganpati so powerful.
He arrives as a handful of seeds, grows through days of prayer and care, becomes prasad, and finally returns to the earth.
Nothing is really lost. The celebration simply changes form.
All images courtesy Pratiksha Marathe
