I traveled to Ulsoor Lake yesterday near Mahatma Gandhi Rd., also known as M.G. Rd., in Bangalore to witness the public immersion of many Lord Ganesha idols, both small and large. Ulsoor Lake is in the northeast part of the city, approximately 1.5 square kilometers. Some people come to the lake for boating. But there is also a make-shift lake tank that serves as the venue for the immersion of Ganesha idols during Ganesh Chaturthi. Crowds gathered around the gated tank to watch the idols immersed into the water. The larger idols came on big trucks or tractors in a procession with music. The immersions continued after dark, but I only stayed until dusk. The slide show below covers the all aspects and various sizes of Ganesha idols immersed into the water.
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I appreciated the discussion, as I was coming to work this morning, of not hesitating to pay for comfort, if it is within means. I was traveling with someone from my building, whose factory is about two km. from my Institute. He has offered to take me to work, since it is so close to his business. For me, this is a blessing as I can get to work, door-to-door. I will still take the faculty van home, because I get a chance to socialize with my colleagues and it’s also quite comfortable. This morning we took the Nice Rd. (toll road) to Mysore Road (as we usually do), which is a smooth ride. I appreciate the highways that have been developed, since my travels here during my childhood. My memories of traveling through India by road have always been a bumpy ride where I felt like I could suffer from a slipped-disc in my vertebrae. It was even said in the car this morning that Americans do not hesitate to pay for comfort, where Indians won’t hesitate to save money where they can. This is a significant cultural difference between the two countries, primarily derived by their socio-economic differences.
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Indira S. Somani, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Media, Journalism and Film at Howard University, Washington, D.C. Somani studies effects of satellite television on the Indian diaspora, specifically the generation of the Asian Indians who migrated to the U.S. between 1960 and 1972, and their media habits.
She has been published in the Howard Journal of Communication, Journal of Communication Inquiry, International Communication Research Journal, Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, and the Asian Journal of Communication.
For the fall of 2011, Somani was awarded a Fulbright-Nehru Senior Research Fellowship to study the Western influence of Indian programming in India.
Somani is also an award winning independent producer and director of documentaries. Her most recent production, Life on the Ganges (2016), is a 10- minute documentary short about the life of one boatman, who rows tourists along the Ganges River in Varanasi, India, particularly around Dev Diwali when people from all over India travel there to bathe in the Ganges to wash away their sins and purify their souls. The film has been screening in film festivals all over the U.S.
Another production, Crossing Lines (2007), is a personal essay 30-minute documentary about her struggle to stay connected to India after the loss of her father, and about how Asian Indians maintain and preserve their cultural identity. The film has won numerous awards, screened in film festivals nationally and internationally, screened on PBS affiliates, and has also been distributed to more than 100 university libraries in the U.S. through New Day films.
Somani brings 10 years of broadcast journalism experience as a television news producer to the classroom, most notably with CNBC and WJLA-TV, the ABC affiliate in Washington, D.C. She has been a leader of the South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA), where she has also won several “Outstanding” awards on her coverage of South Asians in North America.
Prior to joining Howard University, Somani was an Assistant Professor of Journalism at Washington and Lee University (Lexington, VA) and American University’s School of Communication (Washington, DC). Somani earned her Master’s in Journalism from the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University in 1993, and her Ph.D. from the Phillip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland, College Park in May 2008.