Fun off-Friday explorations. Lunch of Korean dumplings at Myung In in K'town. A variety of delicious steamed and fried dumplings, and those "wang mandoo" gigantic soft doughy bao stuffed with ground pork, shrimp, and veggies! Then wandered down to Mumu Bakery, where they make these filled brioche -- fresh and warm, sweet and flaky, filled with cream cheese or red bean or nutella or apple-mango. Then for some art, we headed to the Sprüth Magers Gallery in mid-Wilshire, where a Robert Irwin installation has taken over the whole place. They knocked out interior walls, opened up exterior windows, and put in these white scrims with black boxes. This simple device has a fascinating effect that just makes you want to walk all around and view it from all different angles just to see how the translucent boxes juxtapose in different ways.
See complete photo album here.
With an unexpected day off of work, I thought I would go to India for the afternoon. Or at least to the BAPS Sri Swaminarayan Mandir (Hindu temple) in Chino Hills. This temple was absolutely stunning from the elaborately carved teak of the haveli (visitor center) to the Rajasthani pink stone of the mandir (temple). And then the interior (no shoes, no photos) is even more breathtaking, as elaborate but all of white Carrera marble. By luck, I was there when an arti (devotional service) was about to start, so I was invited to join others who were starting to sit cross-legged on the floor in the midst of this temple, facing some teak doors. I sat next to an old Hindu and just tried to follow his lead. With a waft of incense some lively musical chanting began, and we clapped in a beat. The doors opened to reveal dazzling brightly colored murtis (statues of deities), with saffron-robed monks waving candles in front of them. After a while the monks set down the candles and did some ritual prostration (looked like flow yoga) while someone brought the candles around to us on the floor, where each person held their hands over them to feel the heat. After this was done, the monks came to the edge of the altar and I followed as others formed a receiving line to greet the monks by first bending down to touch their bare feet and then shaking their hands.
After exploring the temple, I drove to the "Little India" neighborhood of Artesia to have lunch at Rajdhani, a place known for thali, which is like the Gujarati version of dim sum. Thali is literally the word for the metal tray with little metal bowls that servers come around and endlessly fill with soups and stews and breads and rice. There was a spicy lentil curry soup with peanuts, a yogurt soup with herbs, fried green mango, cauliflower and peas, beans. All veg of course. And breads to soak it all up - puffy fried puris and flat rotis.
After lunch I wandered the neighborhood to check out the shops with saris and other fashions, “cash and carry” markets with exotic produce, spices, and all sorts of stuff.
So awesome to go to India for a day. I love LA.
(See complete photo album here.)
To the makers of Romil and Jugal: Thank you for this wonderful creation of yours. I have been captivated by it for the last two weeks, and many scenes authentically touched me and flooded me with emotional memories of when I was Romil and Jugal’s age and just coming out myself. When Romil says he felt as a young boy like he had some sort of “manufacturing defect”, I remember that feeling. I had times when I thought I was some kind of alien. And when he talks about being “on top of the world one moment and scared shitless the next”, oh I so remember that! My first romantic encounter was an exhilarating revelation, and I thought “This! This is what I was supposed to be feeling with girls but never did, and now this feels so right!” And then wondering the next morning how to make sense of it all, and what the heck was I going to do. When Romil and Jugal are on the mountain wondering what their future could possibly be like, that takes me back too. I always tell people that we gay people grow up with the same hopes and dreams as everyone else. I imagined a life getting married to a woman, having children of my own. Then when I discovered I was gay, my picture of my future was torn into a thousand pieces, and I had no idea what to put in its place. At that time in my life, in America in the 1980s, there was nothing to point the way, nobody I knew, no characters in film or on TV, no picture at all. But I was so much like Jugal, unshakably convinced that what I was feeling was right and good and true, despite everything in society telling us otherwise. Even though I could scarcely imagine how two men loving each other could openly fit into the world, I knew I would somehow make it work, even if I had to change the world. Coming out with integrity takes real courage, and I loved your portrayal of that. When Romil kisses Jugal in the café, that takes me back too! I remember well when kissing in a public place was a calculated risk, a self-conscious activism, never just innocent affection. But those small acts are the kind of thing that slowly change the world, and I know that your web series will have an impact in changing the world for the better. I do not know India, but I do know what it is to come out as gay, and I promise you that there will be countless young gay boys across India who will be so encouraged by this. Love is love in any language, as I proved by watching your show. I speak not a word of Hindi, and I didn’t discover until the 10th episode that there was an option for English captions, but I was still gripped by your story. The acting, the expressions, the tone of voice, and the occasional English words were enough to tell the story (although I’ve gone back and re-watched with captions to pick up more of the nuances). I should also add that the Shakespeare rehearsal scene, when Jugal steps in for Rosie, was especially magic for me. Those very lines were read at my own wedding in 2001, before marriage was legal anywhere in the world. Later in 2008 when it became legal in California, Juliet’s banter about whether vows once given can be given again became quite real for us, as we did just that before a judge. Even though my own experiences were in a very different time and place, and though I was fortunate enough not to have to face a choice between family and integrity, I know the challenges you depict are still all too real in too many places today. Thank you for helping to change the world!
