FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THE WORLD, LIVE TELECAST OF ISKCON CHOWPATTY, MUMBAI FLOWER FESTIVAL IN 360 VIRTUAL REALITY
Mumbai 25th January 2018… Kalpnik Technologies, a start-up leveraging VR and AR technology, today launched the world’s first Virtual Reality App – VR Devotee App, specifically targeted towards delivering immersive and interactive religious and spiritual experiences. The first ever such live streaming of a religious event will now happen with the ISKCON Chowpatty flower festival to be held on January 27, 2018 at Mumbai. The VR Devotee App is available for download across mobile platforms. This app allows users to watch the live telecast of ‘Pushpa Abhishek’ the first festival of the year celebrated in January at the ISKCON Chowpatty, temple in Mumbai, through an immersive virtual reality experience.
Pushya Abhishek is the first festival of the year celebrated in January in ISKCON Chowpatty, temple in Mumbai. Most festivals celebrated in the temple involve the Abhishek of the utsava murtis (small brass Deities); but on this special festival, the mula vigrahas or the main Deities of Sri Radha Gopinath of ISKCON Girgaum Chowpatty Temple are showered with one ton (1000 kgs) of colorful flower petals. The best flowers are procured from different parts of the country specially for this occasion – Roses from Vrindavan, Jasmines from Coimbatore
VR DEVOTEE app is available on Google playstore or the Apple App store. You can buy a VRDEVOTEE headset at a highly discounted price @ www.vrdevotee.com. Live streaming of the Flower festival will start from 7:00 pm (IST) on January 27, 2018.
The VR DEVOTEE headset is also available at the Gift Shop at ISKCON Chowpatty. For those who do not want to invest in a headset, you could watch the live telecast on your smart phone.
Radhanath Swami, ISKCON Spiritual Leader said, “At ISKCON, we have always embraced technology to spread spiritualism and this is another initiative to ensure Lord’s message reaches maximum people in this technology age, where the medium is as powerful as message.”
Ashwani Garg – CEO & Co Founder of Kalpnik Technologies Pvt. Ltd said “Our extensive research both in India and US made us realise that Devotees across the world face many problems in their engagement with their spiritual Gurus and temples. Many people are unable to visit highly desired religious temples, meet with their gurus or attend special occasions due to distance, costs, physical inability and time constraints making it either once in a life time visit or an inconvenient impersonal experience. We spent close to 18 months in developing a very user-friendly APP and VR headset that delivers a highly immersive experience for Devotees. The experience is almost as good as physically being there at the temple. For NRIs and people outside India this is a God send since they can now engage deeper with their faith from overseas. Our company has already produced VR experiences for several well-known temples and Spiritual leaders in India. The APP is live on Google play store and will be available on Apple App store shortly.”