A Quiet Beginning to a Busy Month

September always carries a strange calm. Festivals approach, the air cools a little, and everything feels half-finished and full of promise.

August, for us, was anything but quiet, but the kind of busyness that leaves you reflective once it’s done. When I look back on the past four weeks, I see a team (and a small but mighty community) making a dozen careful moves that now add up to something bigger than the sum of their parts.

Before we dive deep, here’s a quick glance for the skimmers:

• ✅ Rituals App launched for internal testing right on time for Ganesh Chaturthi.

• ✅ Google Play recognised us as a Verified & Authorised Developer.

• ✅ Complete rewrite of the website for clarity and depth, plus site-wide privacy policy & terms.

• ✅ Built a 22-member testing community, all with their consent.

• ✅ Began drafting HR policies and onboarding documents in preparation for future contributors.

If that’s all you needed, thank you for stopping by.

But if you want the story, why these milestones matter and how they actually happened, read on.

The Rituals App: From Idea to Living Practice

When we first spoke about building Rituals, it was little more than a promise: an app that lets devotion travel lightly in a digital age.

This month, that promise touched real phones.

On the first day of Ganesh Chaturthi, twenty-two early testers opened the app, browsed prayers, and shared thoughtful feedback. Internal testing on public devices was smooth and bug-free, a quiet but meaningful confirmation that the build is stable.

To support this, we gave Rituals a dedicated space online, a full app product page and clear, respectful compliance documents: the Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.

When Google Play sent the Verified & Authorised Developer confirmation, it felt like a quiet handshake: we are building something that meets the standard.

And while we haven’t onboarded any new team members yet, the conversations we had about future contributors prompted us to start drafting HR and onboarding documents, a first step toward the day when others join in.

A Website That Grew Up

While Rituals came alive, the home base needed to grow with it.

Throughout August we rewrote almost every page of gandharmengle.com to speak more like a person and less like a brochure, richer explanations for slow readers, easy scans for the one hurried.

For the first time, the entire site is covered by a global Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.

It’s not glamorous work, but it’s the kind that makes visitors feel safe to explore and subscribe.

We recommend you keep checking out our policy regulations time to time as they get updated.

What’s Newly Live on the Site

• The Rituals app hub with its supporting legal pages.

• Site-wide privacy and terms sections.

• Updated copy across the homepage and core pages, clearer, warmer, easier to skim.

The Challenge Behind the Scenes

Forming a 22-member tester community wasn’t just a matter of sending a link.

Every participant filled a consent form; every email address was double-checked; each feature request was logged and discussed.

It was a month of careful listening, balancing enthusiasm for rapid progress with the patience that real feedback requires.

Those small, unseen tasks, replying to late-night questions, writing clear onboarding instructions, are the quiet labour that makes public building possible.

Looking Ahead

September carries its own ambitions:

• Rituals App

  • Add 40+ new prayers across multiple deities.

  • Prepare for the next festival, Navratri.

  • Implement the best feature requests from our testers.

  • Complete closed testing and begin the journey to a public release.

• Writing & Reflection

  Two months passed without a blog post, a rarity here. But code demanded the spotlight. This month, expect a return to essays and observations drawn from everything we’ve been learning.

• Law & Compliance

  As our audience grows globally, we are aligning every policy to international standards for privacy and data protection, with special focus on children’s data. September will see continued refinement of these documents as our reach expands.

Early Analytics Snapshot

Growth tells its own story:

• Instagram

  • 3000+ views - up by 628 % from July an all-time high yet.

  • 463 accounts reached - up by 239 %.

  • 98 profile visits - up by 55 %.

• Website

  • 126 % increase in views compared to July.

  • 17 new email subscribers, many joining through the tester program.

• Facebook, LinkedIn, and the blog remained intentionally quiet while development took the lead.

A Parting Note

Three months in, that feels truer than ever.

Every line of code, every policy drafted, every new reader is a brick in something meant to last.

Thank you for reading, testing, sharing, and simply caring.

If you’re new here, consider this your open invitation to Join Us in the ways we’ve been shaping from the start:

• Subscribe to the monthly newsletter for behind-the-scenes progress and early analytics snapshots.

• Join as a Member – Contribute your skills, ideas, or collaborations to help shape the next phase of our work.

• Test the Rituals app to help refine the product and shape what it becomes.

Whether you choose one path or both, the door is wide open.

— Gandhar Mengle