Confined to a hospital bed with a life-threatening health condition, Sajeev Manayangath made a rethink on his life and work. This collapse was sort of an epiphany, a moment when he accepted that if ever he survived, he would do things differently.
A senior professional with reputed IT companies based in Bangalore with over 16 years of work experience, Sajeev decided that he would do something that would be of some use to the people. “I spent nearly two lonely months in a hospital in England. I saw the concern and experienced kindness of the people around, especially the Malayali community. I heard my friends and family talk of prayers and offerings to so many temples across India, how that gave them solace and confidence to face the situation and how concerned they were when they were not able to fulfil at least some of the offerings. So, when I came back from the edge, the first thing I decided I would do is to create a way for devotees across the world to connect to their temples. That’s how Devaayanam (meaning Journey to God) was born,” says Sajeev, Founder and CEO of Devaayanam.
Websites for temples
Devaayanam is an online platform where temples can have their websites for free. “I could not do this alone. My cousin Santhosh, who also had quit after 16+ years in IT and started up in the same area, shared my thoughts. He agreed to partner with me and helped create the software platform. Devaayanam was launched in 2015. Temples can mail us or register at our site to get their own website. They can update their activities; accept online bookings; devotees can find updated details, while the visitor centre can help them plan their visits,” adds Sajeev, who hails from Palakkad, did his schooling in Tripunithura where his parents have settled.
Working on a cloud-based SaaS platform, Sajeev explains that Devaayanam has a centralised model. .
“We have around 35 temples on the platform now and 1,000 users with over 10,000 hits every month. Initially it was all about trust building so we were a bit slow. But in the last couple of months, there’s been a lot of activity. We do not have anything to do with the money transactions as all of it is through bank transfer, for which we have The Federal Bank on board.”
Sajeev goes on to list out some of the salient features of the platform and its goal, “We are looking to give a meaningful online presence for temples across the world. In future, we hope that Devaayanam would become the ultimate repository for temple literature. We are sure it will go a long way in the growth of temple tourism for we provide information of the temples, the places of interest nearby, places to stay, clinics, cabs etc. Most importantly we provide a connect between devotees across the world to their preferred temples. In fact, since the launch of Devaayanam many temples that were on the verge of ruin have shown signs of prosperity.”
The platform assures that the devotees get monthly consolidated updates/mailers on all the registered temples. “A centralised back-end and the support team makes sure that all the pujas are done. We also help temples update their websites. The temples interested in coming aboard simply need to register at http://registration.devaayanam.in/ and give the details. A quick verification and their website will be ready within 24 hours. For the devotees , they can visit the platform and by using the same user-id/password can visit all the temples and know what’s happening.”
Encouraging progress
Devaayanam, Sajeev says, has just taken its baby steps but the progress has been encouraging. “We are looking to form an advisory board soon. Recently Prasanth, an IIM graduate, has joined us and we are looking at various ways to make it feasible. There are about 100,000+ medium to large temples in India and 70% of India’s tourism is of the religious nature. We have more than 30 small and big temples in our platform spread across Palakkad, Thrissur, Kozhikode and Kannur in this short span of time. There’s a future for this.”
However, Sajeev is aware of how this venture can be construed. “This is not a portal engaged in distributing prasadam to devotees. It is a platform for temples, or perhaps something more than that. We are not looking at rituals nor are we superstitious. Prayer and meditation yes, for I and the others with me believe in it. We are trying to build up the eco-system around temples, mostly the smaller ones that are struggling to survive. This is a mission for us and whatever the struggle we will keep doing this,” says Sajeev.
