If religion be the opium of the masses, Prakash Mundhra is enjoying giving them a high. His company, Sacred Moments, makes ‘puja kits’ for Diwali, an idea he conceived as a student at Symbiosis Centre for Management and Human Resource Development (SCMHRD) in Pune. “My marketing professor, Shivram Apte, rejected the idea totally,” says Mundhra. “We had long arguments — he didn’t think there was a market for it.” Prof. Apte was wrong. In its first Diwali season — October 2006 — Sacred Moments sold more than 10,000 puja kits and achieved a turnover of Rs 35 lakh. “I took a risk,” grins Prakash. “But it has worked out.”

The seed of a successful idea was sown when, as a first-year student, Mundhra entered the ‘Mera Gaon, Mera Desh’ business plan contest sponsored by ITC. Participants had to develop strategies linked to ITC brands. Mundhra chose ‘Mangaldeep agarbattis’ and suggested branded puja items, such as haldi (turmeric) and roli. That didn’t quite catch ITC’s fancy but he refined his plan and submitted it to more contests, including Zee TV’s ‘Business Baazigar’. The idea of a branded puja items retail outlet (along the lines of Archies) won Mundhra the ‘mini baazigar’ title and several prestigious business plan contests — IIM Lucknow, IIM Calcutta and Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, to name a few.

Yet, he was in a dilemma. He went through the placement process and accepted an offer from ICICI Prudential. “In the meantime, I entered six business plan contests and won five,” he says. “I became more and more convinced about my idea — which was now a ‘puja kit’ — and four days before I was to join my new job, I sent the HR head an e-mail declining the offer.” Thus, Sacred Moments was born. The Rs 50,000 cash award from Zee helped in the initial research and formulation stage of the product. “I calculated that another Rs 3-4 lakh would be enough to start off.” He already had half the amount in hand — prize money from business plan contests. The balance, he raised from family and friends.

Armed with a few samples of his wares, Mundhra set up a stall at the Giftex exhibition in Mumbai in August 2006. “The response was tremendous. When I won the ‘best product award’ at Giftex, I knew I was on to something big.” Based on enquiries alone, he took the decision of producing 12,000 puja kits. Eventually, corporate bookings and export orders came in, and in the run-up to Diwali, the kits were stocked at retail outlets such as Asiatic and Akbarallys. “Strangely, 500 kits sold after Diwali,” he says. Requests for kits for more occasions, and more religions, have been pouring in. A ‘grih pravesh puja kit’ and ‘vehicle puja kit’ are already on the cards.