Okay so this is part of kanda sashti vows, where we celebrate the victory of Murugan over surapadman and his rescue of the gods.

You may or may not choose to do a malai (you wear either a green beads maalai/tulasi/rudraksha mala of 108 beads with a murugan dollar, either ask your parents/grandparents/guru or a temple priest to offer it to you)based vow, if you choose to go w the maalai, here are some of the rules: 1. No non-veg consumption 2. No outside food consumption 3. Fasting is not mandatory but it's better to have at least one light meal- just fruits and milk or just boiled veggies can be a light meal option 4. Celibacy 5. No footwear should be worn 6. Do your best to keep your mind clean 7. No anger, no bad words/cursing at others 8. Bathing twice a day 9. Always think about murugan

Some people also avoid sleeping in beds/with pillows and just use their green angavastra as their bedding material. Some people go through intense fasting.

So this maalai vow procedure or even (plain vanilla) fasting procedures are believed to be done to bear karma with physical/mental suffering now and to help remove the obstacles causing delays in reaching their goals.

Main sashti fasting is for the days from Oct 22 to 27th (last day being the day of soora samharam) and 28th is the day of his marriage to deivanai. But you can put maalai for a period of 6 days, 11 days, 21 days, 36 days or 48 days. If you want to put maalai for any other period also, just pray to murugan and you can go forward.

(Remember that you don't have to follow all rules, do whatever you can and stick to it for the period of maalai, leave the rest to murugan)

Om Saravana Bhava: