'Fake pandits mint money due to people's ignorance'

NAGPUR: Having been born into a family of pandits who organize religious rituals, Ashutosh Tiwari had grown up seeing the difficulties faced by those in this extremely unorganised profession. It was with the aim of bringing a semblance of organization in it that he and his friend Yogesh Dubey set up a website that enables booking of pandits online for ceremonies. It also explains the rituals and lists ingredients needed for them.The Mumbai-based start-up, set up by 25-year-old engineers Ashutosh Tiwari and Yogesh Dubey, superpandit.com is being mentored by city-based innovations firm Lemon Ideas. Its services are at present available in four cities— Mumbai, Nashik, Nagpur and Varanasi— but plans are afoot to expand them.“My father was a priest and I saw from close quarters how the seemingly simple task of having poojas performed somewhere was often not so easy for both the devotees and the priests. There was also some amount of mistrust among people about the need for certain things. From childhood itself, I had thought I would do something to organize this sector,” said Ashutosh. In fact, he had registered the domain name as an engineering student for Super Pandit way back in 2010, when he had no idea about how this would be done.A well paying corporate job followed college but a year later, the entrepreunial urge became stronger. It resulted in the formal launch of Super Pandit in June 2014 with Ashutosh and Yogesh at the helm. At first, it operated as an e-commerce site, selling eco-friendly Ganesha idols and sweets from famous shops around Mumbai. At this juncture, they met Deepak Menaria from Lemon Ideas and the journey into realizing the actual aim behind setting up the website started.Ashutosh Tiwari and Yogesh Dubey launched the website superpandit.com an year ago to provide online booking of pandits. It has only been a month since the new, improved version of services started and it has already attracted attention of the priests as well as devotees."Such initiatives would help us propagate knowledge of our religious rituals. People don't usually realize what to look for in a pujari, no questions about his qualifications are asked. Fake pandits are misusing this ignorance as a means of making money," said Acharya Raviraj Mishra, one of the empanelled super pandit from Mumbai.One of the very first customers of the portal, revenue manager Shrikant Sharma is very happy with the service. "Searching for pandits and pooja ingredients myself now feels like having to stand in line to buy a train ticket. This service was like booking a ticket online," he said adding that it is part of a natural progression that took surprisingly long for someone to come up with.Co-founder Yogesh, himself from a Brahmin family, said, "Hinduism is the only religion that doesn't believe in promoting itself which is leading to many youngsters becoming agnostics. It is important to explain to them basics most which have scientific basis and rational explanation." He informed that the next stage was to launch in Bangalore, Haridwar and New Delhi.