Flipping through channels, at the dead of the night, i came across a very interesting talk show where the topic chosen for dissection was "is it possible for today's India to accept the mixed gender flatmate scenario?" . Like all the other chat shows there was the host, in this case a famous bollywood actor (since the show is aired on a recently started lifstyle channel) and there were guests, consisting of an ex-miss India (completely dumbfounded) a little or should i be more generous and say not at all known actor and a media professional. With the host throwing a volley of questions at his guests, the three of them looked compeletly at loss of their own views. While the Miss India started with "i have no issues in sharing my space with the opposite sex as i have already been there and done that" but by the end of the show she came to a conclusion that she would rather live with a girl than a guy because a) she would feel more comfortable with her and b) she would be able to discuss her girlie issues more freely with her. Told you she was as dumb and confused as all the beauty queens who cannot look beyond Mother Teresa and World Peace when manned with an opportunity to speak. The actor, on the other hand, started his performance by saying that, "i have lived with a woman in the past but given a choice i would rather live with a guy now". The reasons...well a) He would feel more comfortable in his company b) would be able to discuss man stuff with him, without any inhibitions. Trust me guys one look at that guy's face and you would have felt if he could even afford to buy himself one square meal forget a rented accommodation. The third guest on the panel was honest enough to say that "it all depends on the individual and what s/he shall bring to the table(read flat)". While the third guest on the panel was straight foward in his ex-pression the other two guests on the show presented a vey incoherent and confused view point. They were either trying to project themselves as part of today's urban cool (which they certainly were not) or were speaking in affirmation only because they were given an opportunity to their 15 seconds of fame (in this case its minutes and not seconds).

Whatever said and done, the topic was rather interesting as it opened up a can of worms for me. There were a lot of issues that were not discussed as forthrightly and assertively as i'd rather would have loved to. Issues like the impact on the parents of individuals going for such adjustments, the societal problems that they often face and how they would manage to keep their relationship to being just platonic and nothing more than that, were pushed aside. When all three were saying that they had a member of the opposite sex as their flatmate, i wondered how their families must have reacted. It's a fact that how much you would deny your invovement with the other person, especially in cases like these, its difficult to convince your family and society, at large, about the sanity of your relationship with the other person. Because the truth remains that once the door of your flat is closed the world doesn't know what goes in there. Agreed, it's nobody's business to question your integrity but for how long can one escape the prying eyes and never ending inquiries of the very socitey ,that no matter what one feels about, was is and would always remain a part of. Ignoring it is a possibility but completely escaping it is utopian. No matter how much one would try to stand against it, the isolation would take on and completely destroy the person in question from within.

If we try and overlook, though an impossible task, the socitey and its useless concerns with our personal lives then the people most affected by this trend are the parents of the individuals involved in such a scenario. Their upbringing would be questioned from time to time, the kind of culture that was taught to them back home would become the topic of scrutniy for everyone. The whole situation would come down to pointing the very teachings of those two people (read parents) who, in most of the cases, would not be even aware of the things their little ones do once out of their cocoon. It's important to understand that once we step into the big bad world outside our sheltered homes, even though we appear to be standing alone but what we carry with us is the years of teachings, manners, culutre etc, given to us by our parents. It's their name that gets tarnished first, before ours, when we induldge in something frivilous. So why put their reputation at risk when we can avoid such situations.

Aping the western culture has become a norm rather than an exception. But what one fails to understand is that things which are acceptable there might not fit the scheme of things back home. Its quite natural there to move out of your parents home once you are 18 and start fending for yourself quite early in life but its completely the opposite here. Parents here spoonfeed the children till the time they start earning and moving out on parents is considered nothing less than sacrilege. So, in a nutshell copying the western ideals and standards might not always go down well with the audience back home and 'cool' might not always sound 'kewl'!

The other worst affected party could be the partner/lover of the individual in question.Though the basis of every relationship is trust, but even it tend to falter with time.With emotional dependency increasing on the person you are staying with, the lover might feel jealous and in some cases even left out and a misfit. In times of crisis we usually call up people whom we live with or say close friends or someone who would understand us better and find a befitting solution to the mess that we could be in at that point of time. In this case it could be your flatmate, as s/he would have seen you going through worst of emotional upheavels, would know what kind of situations you feel vulnerable in and what makes you feel strong, therefore, the role of the lover as a comforter takes a back seat.That is not because you are involved with that person in any way but because in good or bad, happy or sad, best or worst times you guys have stayed with each other and even if something goes wrong in a days time you would still go back to the same appartment to sleep with the same person, even though in separate rooms.So, no matter how easy or paitent your lover is with your flatmate there is something inside him that would constantly tweak him about your comfort level with this other person.In some cases such thoughts are ignored in some suppressed but time and again they do lift their ugly head only to destroy the bond that one used to share at one point of time.But the question that bothers me most here is that would these people be honest enought to tell their future lovers or spouses the truth about their previous living status? Even though they were living with some one else and not exactly in a live-in relationship, but how many of them would be able to see the fine line between the two and accept them for what thier future would hold for them, together, rather than how there past could affect them?

But with every relationship comes its pros and cons.It would be foolish to say that this arrangement does not have a positive side to it. The amount of knowlegde that one can garner about the opposite sex is absolutely priceless.It can help them judge a person better in future and even find a genuine partner/lover.Even if its an economics driven situation, the bond that they would form with the person under such circumstances would remain strong forever and the two would always have an am-pm friend just a call away.And even better, if they fail to find some one whom they can truly call their own, then s/he can end up getting married with one another because there is no one around who would understand them better than the one who has endured the pain of living together, accepting each others flaws as something natural and not to be blamed for.

But one question still remains unanswered. "Would i ever go for such an arrangement?". Well my answer to this is straight,simple and universal,"No matter what gender,we all love to live in the company of women!" ;-).