For the John Templeton Foundation, I wrote about the intersection of religious identity and personal spirituality.
The shot opens the interior of a suburban home: a framed picture of the elephant-headed Lord Ganesh. The camera pans down to a small altar with images of other deities (Lakshmi, Shiva, Hanuman) and ceremonial objects. A teenager’s voice intones: “Hey Gods, it’s Devi Vishwakumar, your favorite Hindu girl in the San Fernando Valley. What’s a-poppin?”
So starts the pilot episode of the Netflix comedy series “Never Have I Ever,” created by Mindy Kaling and Lang Fisher. The series draws from Kaling’s experiences growing up as the child of South Asian immigrants, and has been viewed as a breakthrough moment for portraying a more multifaceted account of the lives of South Asian American girls and women, including their religious practices. Kaling told the New York Times the “Hey Gods” opening line came verbatim from some of her own prayers as a teenager. Other plot points in the show’s opening episodes include proper care for a chemistry book that has been blessed by a Hindu priest, and the desires each main character brings to the altar at the Ganesh Puja festival held by Devi’s community at a local high school.