{"id":14494,"date":"2016-08-03T16:25:36","date_gmt":"2016-08-03T10:55:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/globalpress.hinduismnow.org?p=14491&amp;preview_id=14491"},"modified":"2016-08-03T16:25:36","modified_gmt":"2016-08-03T10:55:36","slug":"purohits-now-just-a-click-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/?p=14494","title":{"rendered":"Purohits now just a click away &#8211; The New Indian Express"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>BENGALURU: A city-based start-up has a database of purohits from all parts of the country and offers packages for various occasions.<\/p>\n<p>Started by a techie from Coimbatore who came to Bengaluru to pursue his career in IT, onlinepurohit.com lists Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Bengali, Gujarati, Rajasthani and Assamee purohits.<\/p>\n<p>They offer services for more than 50 pujas and homas like weddings, engagements, baby showers (seemantha), house warming (gruhapravesha), baby naming (namakarana), thread ceremony (upanayana) and birthdays.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA couple of years back, I heard from my friend from Andhra Pradesh who was struggling to find a purohit of his region and caste in Bengaluru. That is when I realised that there is a demand for regional purohits in the cosmopolitan city,\u201d says C Rajkumar, founder of onlinepurohit.com.<\/p>\n<p>A BTech graduate in information technology, Rajkumar is religious and goes to temples regularly. \u201cI frequently saw people enquiring about priests from their state and caste,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n<p>Soon, Rajkumar quit his job to start the website. However, things weren\u2019t as easy as he expected them to be. \u201cFor the first eight months, my team members and I met priests personally and got them registered free of cost,\u201d he says, adding, \u201cNow, we have more than 500 purohits from across south India.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The priests are classified according to their region. \u201cOnce we get an order, we put the customer in touch with the appropriate purohit. We do not charge the customers. We get 15 to 20 per cent from what the purohit makes on the deal,\u201d Rajkumar explains.<\/p>\n<p>In a day, the website gets over 50 queries and 20 orders. The past month of Ashada has been slow for the business, as it is considered inauspicious.<\/p>\n<p>The prices shown on the website are only fees of the purohits. Puja and homa material cost extra. \u201cCustomers must place orders at least one day prior to their event,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>The company plans to include astrology to the list of services. They also have plans to start an ecommerce platform to sell puja material.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BENGALURU: A city-based start-up has a database of purohits from all parts of the country and offers packages for various occasions. Started by a techie from Coimbatore who came to Bengaluru to pursue his career in IT, onlinepurohit.com lists Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Bengali, Gujarati, Rajasthani and Assamee purohits. They offer services for more than [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14494"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14494\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}