CHENNAI: Welcome to Jaya Durga Peetam,” reads a message on your phone when an authority behind the computer screen in the temple asks you for your name, contact number and nakshatram (star). You also receive a sealed bottle of mineral water. The personal e-invite is only one of the many tweaks the temple has made to meet modernity head-on.
The temple, that is home to 22 deities, has a keen eye for sanitation and health. The prasadam at the temple, according to the administration, is cooked with mineral water. “Our temple prasadam is certified by Food Safety and Standards Authority of India,” claimed Dr K Sri Sridhar, a herbal oncologist, who heads the prayers at the temple.
The prasadam includes rice, pulses, vegetables, pickle, digestives, salad and dessert and comes in a cardboard box. On lucky days, you may even get brownies for dessert! The food is delivered to your place by a logistics company and comes packed with tissues, forks and spoons. However, the prasadam is delivered only to donors who make “non-monetary offering such as clothes to the deities or ingredients for prasadam,” said Sridhar.
In one corner of the temple, devotees drop a coin into a groove in the wall, which is a customised vending machine that rolls prasadam boxes to you on dropping the temple’s coin. According to members of the temple administration, the prasadam cannot be purchased. While food standards are strictly monitored, the health of the devotees is also given equal importance.
Dr Sridhar said, “I personally monitor the blood pressure of every devotee who wants to perform Angapradhakshanam in our temple. I have even advised a few against doing it.” He added that a hair dryer is made available to devotees after Angapradhakshanam.
Updates about all events and festivals are available through their app, JayaDurgaPeetam. In the future, the temple may install a biometric prasadam-vending machine.