100 Days of Absolute Insanity: My First Mahaganapati Purascharana

They say when you decide to do a Purascharana, you’re basically inviting the deity to clear out your life. And trust me, Maha Ganapati doesn't use a broom. He uses a sledgehammer.

For context: In Tantra sadhana, a Purascharana isn't just a casual daily prayer. It’s an intense, highly structured vow where you commit to chanting a mantra a massive number of times - usually 100,000 repetitions (a lakh) within a strict timeframe, followed by specific fire rituals (homam), water offerings (tarpanam), and feeding people (bhojanam). It’s essentially a spiritual detox designed to burn through heavy karma.

Looking back at the 100 days leading up to May 5th, "crazy" doesn’t even begin to cover it. It started with a random impulse, immediately crashed into a painful heartbreak, spiraled into a whirlwind of theater and unexpected initiations, and ended with a buzzing head, a massive wall of fire, and a pair of scissors.

Here’s the unfiltered story of how I survived my first Mahaganapati Purascharana.

The Plan (And the Universe Laughing)

It all began at Kalarigram. Yes, I know that place is a recurring character in all my posts. Bear with me. I had just finished offering an artwork of the goddess Kubjika for Tantrotsav 2026, and I felt this random, intense longing to just be there.

As it happened, the dates coincided with a Chaturthi. My acharya, Shree Kumar Ji, gave me the nudge to start the sadhana.

I had a strict deadline: I was headed for the Kailash Manasarovar yatra in late May, which gave me roughly 130 days. I needed to pick a completion date. Initially, I fixed May 5th, my birthday thinking it would be nice to have the Purascharana Angas (the homam, tarpanam, marjanam, bhojanam) on my special day. Then I realized that was incredibly cheesy and decided to look for the Sankashti Chaturthi date that week instead.

Coincidentally? It fell exactly on May 5th. Not just that - it was a Tuesday. A Sankashti Chaturthi on a Tuesday becomes Angaraka Chaturthi, which is insanely auspicious.

So, I took the 100-day sankalpa: 1,000 malas, 1 lakh japas.

I told my parents I wanted to do the final homam at our home in Kerala. Now, they know I’m impulsive and a lot more crazy than the average person, so they initially just ignored me.

But I knew it had to happen there.

Then came Day 3.

The Purascharana started off great, but by the third day, I was hit with a massive shock. For personal reasons, a close friendship with someone I was dearly fond of came to a sudden, unexpected end. It was painful and jarring. The deity was clearly wasting no time clearing the canvas.

The 100-Day Whirlwind

The next 97 days were the craziest days of my life. Everything I thought and didn't think would happen, happened.

A few days after the friendship ended, I visited my Kuladevi and Kodungallur Bhagavathy. Somewhere along the way, my connection with both of them just deepened. In two months, I ended up going back to Kalarigram four times, got to celebrate Bharani, and something I never could have imagined, I was initiated into the Bhadrakali mantra as I mentioned in my other post.

Meanwhile, life outside the mat went completely off the rails. I got involved in a theater production, ended up singing for it, and traveled to a different city to perform. It was wild.

Back in Kerala, my parents were trying to figure out the homam logistics. In a completely random encounter at a temple, they met a guy who introduced himself and stayed in touch with my dad. Turns out, he was a Sri Vidya upasaka. When my dad mentioned we needed a priest for a Purascharana completion, this guy came over, absolutely ecstatic to help. He told us they rarely see people my age focused on intense tantra sadhana. Personally, I didn't think it was a big deal because I'm usually surrounded by a sangha that is way more intense than I am, but it was a beautiful blessing.

Then, the priest spoke to my dad and laid out the reality: we were doing 10,000 fire oblations in a single day.

That’s when it finally hit my parents what a massive undertaking this was. Seeing them realize the scale of it, I asked them if they’d be interested in being initiated into the mantra. To my surprise, they immediately agreed! Shree Ji was conducting an online initiation a few days later. My grandma was the first to sign up, followed by my mom and dad. Seeing them sit and practice every day was honestly one of the most wonderful things ever.

The Kodungallur Synchronicity

I arrived in Kerala a few days before my birthday with a mountain of pending malas that had to be finished before May 5th. On May 3rd, I messaged Shree Ji to update him on the count and the homam prep.

His reply? He was in Kerala.

Not just that...he was visiting the Kodungallur temple on May 4th! The catch was that they were going in the evening, and I was scheduled to go in the morning. I was so bummed that I was going to miss seeing him by just a few hours. Then he messaged saying their morning work got postponed, so they were coming in the morning instead. Can you actually believe the odds?

The next morning, I woke up early, completed my last 25 malas, and just burst into tears. The sheer exhaustion and relief of hitting that finish line broke something open.

Three hours later, after visiting my Kuladevi, I was standing in Kodungallur, a place so dear to me, a place I had told him about months ago and there he was. We took him and Gurumaa around, along with another gurubandhu. And the best part? My other gurubandhus present were my own parents, just two weeks after their initiation. It felt completely surreal.

The Storm Before the Calm

That evening, the universe decided to play one last game.

The rain started pouring in sheets, and the power went out. Usually, our inverter kicks in, but that night, the inverter decided to completely give up. It started blurting out weird notifications, beeped loudly, and shut off.

Total darkness. Massive storm. A huge ritual the next morning. My parents were panicking, but I honestly just sat there laughing. I had to remind them, "Look at who we are doing the sadhana of. He's got a sense of humor."

Sure enough, the power came back, the rain stopped, and everything resumed as if nothing happened. Our Sri Vidya upasaka friend joined us to help set up the homa kund, and the excitement for the next day finally set in.

5 AM, Fire, and Mixed Emotions

The priests arrived early, did the initial poojas, and handed things over to me at 6:00 AM.

I started with the first 40 malas. That alone took over two hours. I took a tiny water break, stretched my legs, and sat back down for the remaining 60 that took 4 hours to complete.

Looking back now, I have absolutely no idea how I pulled it off. It feels completely vague. I don't know how I was handling the Rudraksha mala in my left hand, mentally keeping track of the count, reciting the mantra as fast as humanly possible, all while pouring drops of ghee into a devouring fire.

The house was dead silent. My family sat there the entire time, contributing whatever japas they could internally. None of them ate; they just decided to keep me company until I finished.

By the end, I literally couldn't feel my shoulder. Somewhere in the middle of it, I remember having this intense internal dialogue, asking myself: WHAT THE HECK AM I DOING? Why did I even sign up for this? I was asking Mahaganapati why he was making me do it. I was a mess of mixed emotions, proud of undertaking it, totally humbled by the physical pain, grateful that my family was part of the upasana, and just tired and confused about why I was doing it at all!

When I offered the final ritual and finished the last mala, I looked at everyone. They were in utter shock and disbelief and I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. All I remember is standing up and my head literally BUZZING from the sheer intensity of it all. It was the craziest thing I’ve ever done.

The priests confessed they had never seen anything like it and said it was a privilege to witness a sadhaka do this. A part of me felt proud, but a bigger part realized something humbling: I have to do all this because of the massive amount of karma I need to shed. And right now, the only way I know how to do that is to throw myself completely into these intense processes.

The Aftermath and Letting Go

For two weeks after, I felt this deep, internal quiet, even though my external life didn't slow down. The very next day, I had to travel to Calicut for theater rehearsals and the show.

My parents came to watch, and they got to see an avatar of me on stage that I hadn't even seen myself. The most touching part was my mom describing how she got goosebumps watching my friend dance while I was singing Bhadrakali’s name on stage. That moment will stay with me forever because I know that wasn’t me singing. I’m not a singer, let alone a performer. All I know how to do is give myself up to a situation and let something else take over. If only I could live every single moment of my life like that.

I’m leaving these reflections here as I go completely off social media to prepare for my Kailash yatra. It feels like a period of letting go.

Recently, I received a heartfelt message from someone I had unknowingly hurt, and it questioned everything about my integrity, my practice, and who I am. It made me realize that the more sadhana happens, the more careful I need to be about not identifying myself with anything. At the end of the day, I’m just a human being aspiring to be a little better than I was yesterday.

It felt like a moment where I needed to drop a lot of baggage-including my long hair which was almost 20 inches long, and which so many people identified me with, and more importantly, that I was identifying myself with.

So, yesterday, I went and cut it all off, donating it to cancer survivors.

If I can't please everyone, may I at least become the reason someone smiles.

Off to the mountains now!

Shree Mahaganapataye Namaha!