'Prosperity alone won't make us happy': Zoho's Sridhar Vembu offers support to struggling temple priest

Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu on Tuesday said he would arrange regular support for a 70-year-old temple priest from a village near Kumbakonam after a social media post highlighted the priest's financial struggles.

Reacting to the appeal, Vembu said the priest's village was located near his own native place and pledged assistance. "Sad to see this temple priest's plight. It is near my village in the Kumbakonam area. We will contact him and arrange for regular support," Vembu wrote on X.

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The appeal was posted by social media user Krishnan Srinivasan on behalf of Dhandapani Subramaniam, a bachelor who serves as a priest at multiple temples in Padagacheri, a small village near Valangaiman in Tamil Nadu.

In the post, Subramaniam said he lives with his 78-year-old widowed sister and performs services at the village's Sivan Temple, Perumal Temple, Vinayagar Temple and Murugan Temple.

"No income. Struggling to buy medicines, pay for transport, etc," the appeal said, adding that a neighbour provides them with daily tea and dinner and also prepares offerings for the temples.

The priest also said the house where he and his sister live is in poor condition and requires repairs.

Beyond offering help, Vembu also appealed to people who had left their native villages. "I am also going to appeal to people who left all these villages: we abandoned our ancestral villages and abandoned our temples. Prosperity alone will not make us happy. We have to do our duty to our ancestral land and our kula devatas and grama devatas," he wrote.

The Zoho founder said India's cultural and spiritual traditions had long emphasised simplicity and contentment. "Our culture and spirituality have always emphasised simple living and high thinking - contentment at the core. That survived thousands of years but risks being swept away in the tsunami of modernity," Vembu said. "It is time for us to rethink, at least those of us with the means."