Apparently, we Costco bulk-shopping Americans have it all wrong. Mueslix isn’t just something you buy in a box, an assortment of dried fruit and cereal waiting for milk. It takes a little love and preparation.
Jacob shows me the method one morning, after yet another stay at the Uday Park Home for the Young and Restless. It is at this lovely flat where I join Jacob and Sridevi, along with third housemate Meghna, for breakfast.
Jacob is explaining to me the difference between England, Britain, and the United Kingdom. And he explains to me how he is identified, as someone not from England, but from a series of islands nearby. I can’t keep it straight.
Sridevi’s conservative parents would flip if they knew that there was a male housemate in her presence. But fortunately, Sridevi’s parents live in a faraway, mysterious land that we people of North Indian descent refer to as “South India.” (It is one of the great failings of my India travels that I have yet to visit Bangalore, Chennai, or Kerala’s beaches — some of the many talked-about regions of the southern states.)
Sridevi’s parents, like so many others, don’t understand a basic logic — with the conceptual freedom to have sex comes the freedom to not have sex. And this freedom of Not is something exercised by single professional housemates around the world. It is a freedom further reinforced by seeing your flatmates at their aesthetically worst, every morning of the week.
Conservative married elders probably don’t realize just how powerful a mood-killer such a situation can be. As the traditional romance goes, you start by seeing your future partner at their imagined best. A fleeting glimpse here, a shared smile there. Then, you take one of several paths, depending on the traditions of your community: dating, arranged introductions, scandalous eloping, or no contact until the wedding day.
But no matter what path you take, you eventually end up at the same place — so I’ve heard. That bedside snore. That accidental burp at the dinner table. Yet another anniversary dinner. Eventually, everyone else gets to see your husband or wife at their charming workplace best. You, however, get to see them at their phlegmy worst, as that flu virus works its way through their system.
What the conservative elders don’t get is that cohabiting with single flatmates of the opposite sex puts this whole situation in reverse. You start with the phlegm, the ugly pajamas, the dirty dishes. Is it conceivable that you could still work your way back towards idealized romance? Maybe. But do you know anyone who has done it? Maybe not.
It probably isn’t a recipe for love, though the mueslix is tasty. Start with a foundation layer of cereal, add some chopped fruit, put some plain yogurt on top, and bring it all together with a heavy drizzle of fruit juice.
