America-India-Denmark

Easy come, easy go

Oh! Copenhagen. I cherish every hour of my stay in this beautiful city. With only a couple of courses in the first quarter, my studies were moving as slow as Solbjerg Plads’ computers. Even with 4 courses in the second, one would expect some madness but nothing really gets mad here. It’s come as you are – casually. Easy. Relaxed and easy. But Copenhagen still manages to be like a mysterious lover: just when you think you’ve figured her out, she makes you yearn for more. In the day you see smiling cyclists, gentlemen bus drivers and road side musicians, the night lets the gorilla out. Brimming bars and pubs, straddling wild lovers out yelling and monochromatic punk haired body pierced Danes invading Nørrebrogade. Unbridled.

Digitally speaking, the classes at CBS are like online friendships Easy. Relaxed and easy. Nothing to worry about – even if you don’t leave an offliner (don’t participate in class). Nobody gets mad if the PowerPoint presentation sometimes doesn’t work or if YouTube videos don’t load. Some students nonchalantly come an hour late to the class, but when they do, half the students turn around to see who it is. Texans never came more than 5 minutes late, would only roll their eyes to see who did, then got back listening to the lecture. Occasionally when you voice chat (bring up a lively discussion topic), do the students get into the groove. In India, we took short tea breaks between classes. Texans grabbed energy drink. The Danes… a lot of them head for beer. But the professors are smart, entertaining and sassy. If the Indian professors were Tom Hanks, they are like Madonna. Texas A&M was David Letterman. Danes aren’t the debate loving animals, no wonder they don’t have as many silly talk shows on the local television. Try watching an Indian news channel someday.

For someone brought up in Indian classrooms watching girls cry for finishing second in the class and guys losing sleep over fewer slides in presentation, I often feel CBS is like cutting too much slack. I remember those days when spending 10 minutes on ‘glossy exotic erotica’ charred the following 20 minutes with guilt of wasting study time and potential loss of 10 ranks in qualifying examination. Indians don’t make ends meet by playing sports. Well, not a lot do. All we won was one medal in Athens Olympics. Our cricket team sucks as well. We slog it out in the classroom. Brutally. CBS is way too gentle. Take the career fairs! Texan career fairs were politically correct, immaculate and business professional in attire and approach. They were like talking to your boss. Scandinavian fairs are carnivals! Company representatives seem like your mates in the beer bar. I was so terribly underdressed for the Texas fairs. I was terrifically overdressed at the CBS ones. Easy. Relaxed and easy.

Well, talking of girls, Henrik and his friends think Danish girls are ‘hard to get’ but for a stranger I’ve been making good progress. My 142 pound frame gets ‘checked out’ in Copenhagen twice as often than Texas by the interested sex. The Indian and American anecdotes in the parties have led to cosy dinners. Sweet. Unlike America, the local femme fatales aren’t in the hottest cars. They aren’t a fleeting phenomenon where the latest Volkswagen model beefs up their sex quotient. They casually glide past you walking or cycling, giving you a wee bit more time to exchange vibes.

The ‘event’ of kissing seems like finding a Starbucks in US. Easy. As I write this, sitting by my window, I can see a couple passionately kissing on Nørrebro station. I go to Føtex to buy eggs and I see couples kissing in checkout queues. I go for a walk to Peblinge Sø, I see couples come cycling together, pause at red traffic light, start kissing and off they go cycling again as the light turns green. I think it’s just me who isn’t kissing in Copenhagen. While ordering my pizza I occasionally encounter full page ‘model of the month’ nude women in the newspaper, sometimes get free ‘lust catalogue’ in some coffee shops or see ‘fabulous striptease’ advertisements in ‘Copenhagen This week’. Now I can laugh looking back at my teens when I used to slip out in nights on pretext of buying vegetables to shady alleys to inquire the inventory of whatever-you-can-get porn magazines hidden under the rug by shady book sellers.

Texans were proud and loud, New Delhiites were street smart negotiators and New Yorkers were narcissists and worried. Danes are soft and reserved. Except the Saturday 4am road side fist fights at Nørrebro Station, if you ask me, it’s hard to be unhappy living here.