On Monday, I went to Tirupati to see the Sri Venkateswara Temple. I’ve always wanted to come here, but I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t realize it was this beautiful drive up the Tirumala Hill to get to the temple. Once we got my ticket, I didn’t have to wait in line for hours for my darshan. I was in a VIP line that moved quickly, and my darshan was at 8pm. But like everyone else, I only had a second to look at Lord Venkateswara.
Once you stand in front of the idol, the temple staff pushes you along to keep the line moving. There are a number of armed officers with machine guns in the surroundings, since the gold idol is worth a lot of money. The spot for hundi is outside the worship area in a big white sheet, shaped like a canister that hangs from the ceiling. I’m told that the temple can easily collect at least 1 crore ($188,000 with$1=53 rupees)/day during festival season.
There were also a number of men, women and children walking around with balled heads, as I soon learned that the temple was a place where people shaved their heads once a wish had been fulfilled. Apparently the hair is shipped to the U.S. or Japan for wigs to be made. A special thanks to our family friends, Dr. and Mrs. Reddy, who made this possible for me.
Indira S. Somani, Ph.D. is an Independent Documentary Filmmaker. After a 26-year-career as a television newscast producer and broadcast journalism professor, Somani moved to LA and enrolled in the MFA in Directing/Production, Documentary film program at UCLA. Currently in production is a personal documentary about her role as a caregiver for her Mom who battles depression. The film reveals how much Somani and her mother rely on each other for emotional support. Other films Somani has directed and produced include Life on the Ganges (2017), a 10- minute documentary directed, produced and filmed in Varanasi, India, during Dev Diwali, when people from all over India travel there to bathe in the Ganges River. The film screened in film festivals in the U.S., India and Europe and won Best Short Documentary at the Berlin Independent Film Festival, and the Cannes Short Film Festival. Another film Somani directed, produced and wrote was, Crossing Lines (2007), a 30-minute personal essay documentary about her struggle to stay connected to India after the loss of her father and to maintain and preserve her Indian cultural identity. The film won numerous awards, screened in film festivals nationally and internationally, aired on PBS affiliates through NETA from 2008-2011, and has been used by more than 100 universities as a tool to teach intercultural communication in the classroom. Both films are in distribution through New Day films.
Somani’s doctoral research studied the media habits and effects of satellite television on the Indian diaspora, specifically the generation of the Asian Indians in the Washington, DC metro area, who migrated to the U.S. between 1960 and 1972. She expanded her research to study the media habits, acculturation, and social identity of the same generation in the New York-New Jersey area, San Francisco, Houston and Chicago. For the fall of 2011, Somani was awarded a Fulbright-Nehru Senior Research Fellowship to study the Western influence of Indian programming in India.
While teaching at Howard University’s School of Communications from 2012-2021, Somani’s research shifted to study Black Broadcast Journalists and how race had an impact on their success in the newsroom. She has been published in several academic journals and has also co-authored two book chapters.
Somani’s academic career was preceded by 10 years as a television news producer, most notably with CNBC and WJLA-TV, the ABC affiliate in Washington, D.C. Somani has also been a leader of the South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA), where she has also won several “Outstanding” awards for her coverage of South Asians in North America. Prior to teaching at Howard, Somani taught 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 Philip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland, College Park in 2008. Somani is expected to earn her MFA in Directing/Production from UCLA by Dec. of 2022.