Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], March 7: At a time when virtual healthcare had become the norm during the pandemic months, there were speculations about hospitals doing away with in-person doctor consultations. While the virtual versus offline healthcare debates and deliberations persisted, the two platforms seem to have found a way to co-exist in a world that is still recovering from the impact of the global crisis.
Prashant Sachan, Founder and CEO of Sri Mandir, India’s first devotional app, believes that the question is not so much about online or offline space as it is about addressing the consumer need in the most efficient and fulfilling manner. The Bengaluru-based entrepreneur founded AppsForBharat and its flagship initiative Sri Mandir in November 2020 to serve the under-served devotional and spiritual needs of Indians by building high-quality products that offer the best-in-class user experience.
“We are not competing with the physical places of worship,” maintains Sachan. “Our aim is to support the daily devotional habits of our users. We are complementing them by way of online services, such as providing authentic information regarding puja vidhi, enabling users to choose from a vast library of pujas for varied intents, and offering easy access to mantras and devotional literature. In fact, we support various temples from across the nation by streaming live darshans for our users,” he adds.
As a digitally native nation with over 600 million smartphone users and more than 65% population under 35 years of age, there is an unmet demand in India’s online spiritual and devotional space. Sri Mandir caters to that demand through its multi-language capabilities, which currently include Gujarati, Marathi, Bhojpuri, Haryanvi and Rajasthani. So far, over 10 million Indians have set up digital shrines on their phones through the app.
“The chadhavas (offering) and puja services are the most in-demand features, followed by devotional music, daily panchang readings and information regarding upcoming festivals and shubh muhurats,” says Sachan, who strongly believes that devotion and spirituality will thrive in India, irrespective of the platform.
“India is a deeply spiritual nation, and Indians are known to have a unique, personal relationship with our many gods. We set up personal shrines in our homes, workplaces, automobiles, and even wallets!” he reasons. Sri Mandir curates a customised user experience based on the choice of deity to support the users’ devotional relationship. This includes suggestions of bhajans, literature, aarti sangraha, stotra, and mantra features in the application.
The encouraging response from users and customer testimonials, Sachan maintains, reiterates the fact that people have found hope, peace of mind, a sense of community, and contentment through nurturing daily devotional habits. “The app does offer greater convenience, choice and flexibility in terms of time and space. But the experience continues to be as personal and unique as any fulfilling spiritual or devotional practice,” he says.
Sanjeev Kulkarni, a software engineer from Mumbai, is grateful for the live Shiv darshan on the Sri Mandir app last month during Maha Shivaratri. “All devotional, astrology, and spiritual information is easily available on the app. It has a superb collection of aartis, mantras, bhajans and devotional songs. What’s more, the sound quality is amazingly loud and clear,” he adds.
From setting up digital shrines of revered regional deities to getting free daily updates on panchang and kundali as well as free access to an exhaustive library of Hinduism literature and ad-free devotional music and live kathas recited by prominent Gurudevs (katha vachak), Sri Mandir app is a one-stop-destination for all things spiritual and devotional. The aspiration, Sachan says, is to facilitate the “holistic development” of every single app user.