Mumbai: Actor and former model Dino Morea has recently started an e-commerce venture, ‘iBhakti.com’, which offers remote temple services.
“In today’s day and age, when everyone is so busy with their lives, that you often hear excuses such as ‘I wish I had the time to visit this temple’, I and my partners thought, ‘Why not bring the temples to the worshipers?’ Technology has practically taken over every single function in our lives, so, we thought there wasn’t a better way to do this,” said Dino.
So, what exactly does the website and its accompanying app (of the same name) do? Dino informs, “Worshippers with a hectic schedule or NRIs who can’t frequent India often can visit our website or use the app to avail services being offered by popular Indian temples. This means that you can subscribe to a temple’s ‘aartis’, donate money for puja to be done in your name and then watch the puja being done by the Punditji. The video is sent to your mobile, which you can store for 48 hours and watch as many times as you want. You can also offer a particular ‘prasad’ to the deity, which will then be couriered to your home with a letter from the temple.”
So far, Mumbai’s Siddhivinayak Temple, Varanasi’s Kashi Vishwanath and Mumbai’s Ganesh ‘mandal’ Lalbaughcha Raja are on board. “With Ganesh Chaturthi just around the corner, worshippers of Lord Ganesh can offer prasad through our website or app. In fact, pre-orders have already started pouring in,” added Dino.
Dino’s company is also in talks with many other temples such as Ambaji and Dwarka Temple (Gujarat), Turjabhavani Temple (Maharashtra), Mahalaksmi Temple (Maharashtra), Shirdi Temple (Maharashtra), Mansa Devi Temple (Haridwar), Dagdusheth Haiwai (Pune) and Golden Temple (Punjab).
Dino is presently looking for good scripts. “No. Acting is my first passion. I haven’t given up on acting. I’ve just become very cautious about the kind of roles I want to play. In the past, I’ve made a couple of mistakes in my career, which I don’t want to repeat. So, I’m just being choosy.”
On his long-time dedication for spreading awareness about fitness and healthy living, Dino said, “I’ve been setting up small fitness facilities in Mumbai along the streets. So far, I’ve set up 15 functional training facilities at places such as Marine Drive, Shivaji Park, Bandstand, Thane and so on. I want to spread grassroots awareness about fitness and these 100-square foot facilities are a first step towards that. And, I’m very happy to say that the facilities are always packed with morning or evening walk-goers.”
It would seem that the actor has a lot going on! We wish him luck with all his ventures.
