Bhubaneswar, Sept. 16: A team of young Odia professionals has come up with a website that offers T-shirts with graphics on the state's cultural heritage imprinted on it.

The website, www.beingodia.in, includes T-shirts for both men and women in black and white. A number of designs imprinted on those are popular punch lines from Odia films and tales from Jagannath culture.

Founder of the store Prasanna Kumar Sabat, who is also working with an IT firm in Bangalore, said the idea behind the venture was to popularise the culture of Odisha. "We have a rich culture of folk art forms, handicrafts and handloom. Our aim is to represent them in a contemporary way. People instead of wearing T-shirts with images of western artistes should go desi instead," said Sabat.

"All the members in our group are established in their careers, so we do not want profit out of it," he said.

The idea cropped up when the young boys could not find something to wear on Utkal Divas that falls on April 1. "We wanted to wear something that was funky and had a touch of Odisha to it. We looked for attires online and in a number of shops but could not find any. Thus, the idea hit our minds," said Sabat.

Launched two months ago, the online store is gradually gathering attention from Odia people across the country. "We only promoted the website through various social networking sites. The response was quite good, and we received orders from a number of young Odia professionals residing in big cities," said the 34-year-old entrepreneur.

A large number of round neck and polo style T-shirts are available in the store. Their price ranges between Rs 300 and Rs 500. "The attires are designed after a lot of research such as looking into the trends on the social networking websites and talking to the college students. I look for things that would connect the most with the people and thereafter finalise the designs," said Sabat.

Their services are available across the country.

Their upcoming collection is T-shirts with pattachitra on them. That apart, mugs, key rings and mobile covers on the similar lines will also be available shortly.

"Many people have been asking for gift items, so we are planning to widen the horizon of our products," said Sabat.