Millions of devotees have lined up at the Moti Dungri Ganesh Temple in Jaipur, the capital of India's Rajasthan state, to receive sacred henna believed to help unmarried people find a marriage partner within a year. Drone footage captured vast crowds queuing at the hilltop temple, which houses one of India's most venerated shrines to Ganesha, the elephant-headed Hindu deity of wisdom and prosperity. Such was the scale of the gathering that roughly 3,500 kilograms of henna was used up within just three hours.

The event coincided with Ganesh Chaturthi, one of Hinduism's most widely celebrated festivals, which marks the birth of Ganesha and is observed across India with prayer, music and elaborate public processions. The 2026 festival began on 14 September, falling on the Chaturthi tithi — an auspicious lunar date in the Hindu month of Bhadrapada — and drew enormous crowds well beyond Jaipur. In Mumbai, India's financial capital on the western coast, markets overflowed with devotees purchasing idols, flowers and sweets, while larger statues were paraded through streets on decorated trucks accompanied by drummers and chanting worshippers. Temporary community shrines known as pandals were erected across the city, including at landmark sites such as Lalbaugcha Raja and Andhericha Raja.

In Hyderabad, the capital of southern India's Telangana state, celebrations centred on the Khairatabad neighbourhood, where a towering 69-foot, five-faced Ganesha idol — representing Panchamukha Sankatahara Maha Ganapati, whose five faces symbolise the five classical elements of earth, water, fire, air and space — is expected to draw more than three million devotees before its ritual immersion.

The 10-day festival will culminate on 25 September, Anant Chaturdashi, when processions across the country will carry idols to rivers, lakes and the sea in a ceremony symbolising Ganesha's return to his celestial home. The Moti Dungri henna ritual illustrates how local folk traditions can exist alongside — and amplify — broader festival observances, drawing pilgrims who blend devotion with deeply personal hopes. For millions of young Indians and their families, the sacred henna of Jaipur represents not just religious participation but a tangible expression of faith in divine intervention in one of life's most significant transitions.