A Start Up building a Bridge of Hindu Traditions for the Indian diaspora to Bring in more Clarity
Sumit has found a way to provide spiritual solace to fellow Indians in a rather unbelievable way. A person with a dream to provide services to all Indians for Final Homage at Varanasi is finally seeing the light after 5 years of rigorous work of putting the mind in place. The website is a one-stop solution to remotely perform the last rites of a deceased loved ones in the holy town of Varanasi, or one of 23 other locations, in pure traditional style.
A person logs into the website, fills out the required information, and then follows the simple instructions. Along with the Asthi, two documents, namely the death certificate and the funeral home certificate, are collected.
Subsequent to the ceremony donations and food to Brahmins is given and grass is provided as cow feed. Live Videos and photos are taken of the rituals and are subsequently uploaded onto the system for the families to view, share, download, or print via the App ( coming soon)
Families who have used the service are sent an annual newsletter about any religious ceremonies and/or charity work that can be performed in the name of their deceased loved ones. A list of the charities that can be donated to are featured under the monetary donation section and are 100% tax deductible in the India.
Performing ‘Shraadh’ came into spotlight internationally when Sylvester Stallone decided to perform son’s ‘Shraadh’ in Haridwar after he saw his son in his dreams and wanted his soul to rest in peace.
Why need for such a website? However in India, performing last rites and shraadh (yearly prayers and donation) is an inherent part of the Indian culture which is now finding itself in an uneasy equation with the NRIs. “Over the years, I had observed that Indian families go through various difficulties to disperse ashes of their deceased family members. It is those challenges that motivated me to do something about this problem, says Sumit Srivastava, who is the founder and manages the overall operation of the website. Expecting a great response, Sumit adds, “a dipstick before starting this project asked almost 1500 people across India who we did not know, to validate our idea.
Almost all of those people not only liked our idea but they encouraged us…” Everyone are usually not so aware and educated about how to go about performing last rites. “One of my friend’s son asked his mother to throw the ashes of his deceased father into the trash,” shared the Mathura born, Haridwar raised founder. According to him, the website will not only provide required Asthi Visarjan and Pind Daan services to Indians and Hindus residing at different corners of India, such as in Tripura, but it will also provide insight about the tradition and rituals to reader,” he adds.
The Service
At the moment what is admirable is the fact that two parallel teams are set up in Varanashi and Gaya, with Kashi being the headquarters. The main office will collect, verify, and send the documents with the Asthi to Varanasi. While the Varanashi office, which is headed by Project Manager Manish Srvastava with his friend Neha Gupta and Brahma Singh, will ensure the proper and secure operation of the site. Last but not least, is the centre in Varanasi that will perform the required ceremonies in Varanasi and also the other 13 places in India that will be listed on our website soon.
Expansion Plans
One thing is clear that if it has demand in India then this services are also required for the rest of the world where NRIs are residing. Therefore, it is obvious that on spreading its wings across the world, Mr Manish will have to have more funds and for that hunting for a VC may be one of the viable options or seeking help from family and friends is another. But there is still time since this is an emotional issue. Before anything the team needs to gain trust of the citizens in India that the services are genuine and traditional. The only way to gain the trust is to get the testimony from people who used the services. The niche of the website is well defined by the founder. It will provide traditional Asthi Visarjan and Tarpan services in India through the people who have been devoted to this line of service for more than two centuries with professionalism and efficiency. What makes the team extremely proud is the fact that along doing service to fellow Indians, they will also do kindness to people and to animals through charitable donations.
Founder’s Vision and Challenges
Currently they are in process of doing a study the feasibility of live streaming the rituals. Sharing their future plans, the team says “At this time we are concentrating initially in India. Once we are at the comfortable level, we will study the need in other countries and work accordingly.” He also points there are number of challenges in the path ahead. One of them being that there are clearly more places than the listed for Asthi Visarjan and Tarpan. “It will be challenging to meet the demands for more places beyond our initial 14, but we are ready for it,” says an upbeat Mr. Manish.
