What we can learn from Denmark

Goodbye blond girls, drunk Danes, Tuborg beer, dark skies and on-time Metro trains. Welcome back bargaining, insane traffic, millions of small traders, religious fervor and magical spicy food. Welcome back chaos.

As I travel outside India, I often hear people taking pride in eastern spiritualism and deriding western materialism. The notion of material comforts versus peace of mind. Yes, life is simple in India. Yes, we do things you would term culturally rich. But we also commit shocking acts in the name of religion. And I have met remarkably materialistic Indians, just as I have met remarkably generous Danes. I’m slowly starting to reject the spiritually elevated nature of East versus the hollow materialist West as just another stereotype. All young people I’ve met across the continents are the same. All guys, well most of them, talk about getting laid and which girls they want to hit on. CBS exchange student residence dinners had girls casually categorizing bars where guys grope genitals softly. We Indians do the same. You talk, we whisper. Same subjects. I think there’s much more to learn from each other than we all care to believe.


Indians are so very good at laughing off misery. We experience 1-2 hour electricity power cuts in a day about as often as Danes party in a week. Go 50 miles from New Delhi and it gets worse. But we make good use of it. In the darkness we talk. We go for a walk. We joke about it. I still remember Henrik’s expression when the water tap went dry for 20 minutes one day in four months and how he riled about his 60 percent income tax return to Mr. Rasmussen’s kitty. You Danes are rich, spoilt and demanding. You could learn some patience from us.


Indians are so very emotional. We are the Bollywood breed. We are better lovers than the Italians. We fantasize too much. We also compromise too much. I think India’s sub five percent divorce rates are as misleading as Denmark’s 60-something percent divorce rates. Those five percent hides quite a number of unhappy households, female social divorce stigma and male dominance. You Danes are much better at handling relationships. You move on. We often drag relationships. But family gives us the greatest pleasure. We never travel alone. We never eat alone. We never shop alone. We’re always a bunch. We are never alone. We are so very socially potent. Moms, dads, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, nephews and nieces are our life. You could learn some family relationship management from us.


Indians are entertaining drinkers. We simply don’t know how to. Decades of strict government control on alcohol has catapulted drunkards into collective social despisement. If you are walking funny in the middle of the night in India, expect no sympathy. If you fall, you’re going to stay there until you wake up next morning. Danes drink to celebrate – so very often without reason. I was amazed by the remarkable tolerance you have for drunks. Indians start out drinking to celebrate, but end up melodramatically imparting great worldly wisdom to everyone around. For teetotalers, it’s a hilarious sight. We need to learn drinking from you. We all need to join the two-month-Danish-beer-boot-camps.


Indians need to give more space for women in politics, public service and on the dance floor. There are too many men out. Ludicrous it may sound, considering that India’s crime rate against women is several notches higher than Denmark’s, we are brought up where the society’s civility quotient is directly proportional to the moral conduct of women. It’s so much freer to be a man here. The thought of randomly grabbing a girl’s rear in the middle of drunken fest in the Barcelona Bar in Copenhagen comes with a moral liability. It should. But a woman’s willingness under disco lights shouldn’t decide the moral meter of our society. We need to learn from you. Indian men should do dishes more often.


Indians take education too seriously – maybe because of our population of one billion people or having so much free talent at our disposal. But we take it all too seriously. We worry about exams more than the content of the education itself. It should be more like CBS. Learning should be fun. We need to have cooler professors. We need to have fashion shows late in the day followed by free beer. Okay, free flavored milk and juices. We need to party like you on Friday and Saturday nights.

I was dating Denmark for four months. I followed her every move, at every hour. How they got your paperwork done at the local Kommune. How the professors took time to meet you. How the neXus staff welcomed you. How the librarian went down the basement to search for the book for you. How the neighbors on the upper floor talked to you the day after your late night partying. How the bus driver took time to understand where you needed to go. She was delightful.


Whenever I think of Denmark in the future, I will think of Solbjerg Plads, drunk young people, old people in buses, kissing couples, sleeping babies on the back of bicycles and a lovely Danish Christmas with Henrik’s family. I will always cherish my Danish memories.

Five stars to CBS’ exchange program. Thanks for the beer too.


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Why Denmark resembles India?

I secretly admire watching Danes break traffic signals. It’s so very Indian. On rare occasions when Texans walked, they started a second after traffic signal turned green, Danes start as it turns orange and Indians nonchalantly walked even when it’s red. A common joke proudly floats around among Indians; if you can drive in India then you can drive anywhere. Danes might learn to drive in India but my NASCAR loving Texan buddies never would. I love it.

I can’t believe it’s been 4 months in Copenhagen. It feels like only yesterday when the beautiful CBS exchange crew girls were welcoming us at the airport. Time really did fly in Denmark faster than the local Metro train. Looking back, as I always do, there was definitely something which made my stay in this city of unisexual toilets remind me of my birth place New Delhi. Though still struggling to eat an open Danish sandwich, I feel at home here. I enjoyed Texas but even with chicken tandoori dinners I never felt at home. I wondered why.

I was in awe of America. Blame it on CNN. Blame it on silly Bollywood movies shot in rapturous California. Blame it on stories of Indians who made fortunes in US. Blame me. I think I was more curious to meet the Texans than otherwise. Indians in US are as common as cycles in Copenhagen. We are everywhere. Would a Dane jump with joy meeting a Swede in the LA bar? Nah. Going by how much the Danes drink beer and party, I thought they would be as aware and curious about ‘those- IT-outsourcing-Indians’ as I’m about Henrik’s major: nanotechnology. None. I was amazed by the spectacle of half-drunk Danes wanting to know about India in Danish parties. I was amazed to hear how many of them had actually traveled to India. Indians in Denmark are as like Danes in India. Novelty.

I noticed Texans stepped back, if for a relative stranger, you get within a couple of inches of them. They didn’t share rooms either. They valued their privacy. I was brought up watching guys or girls walking hands-in-hands without ever any sexual preferential connotations. Our privacy radius is comparatively small. So is for the Danes. When sober, you can get pretty close to them and talk. They seem confident while touching. Without any sexual preferential connotations. Anyways, the privacy radius goes for a smoke whether in New Delhi, Bombay, Texas, Chicago or Copenhagen after Saturday 2 AM.

India is colors. Danes love colors. Pink, yellow, green, blue, black and red. Young and old Danes carry off stark red colored shoes, blue framed sunglasses and yellow helmets with élan. Even the little grocery shops strutting fruits and vegetables on sidewalks unknowingly pour colors to the eyes. It feels like an Indian wedding all day long. Show me three adjacent houses painted brown, yellow and red in Texas and you can have all my Indian spices.

Danes and Indian students (in India) are messy. We just don’t clear our tables after eating. See Solbjerg Plads’ canteen at 2 PM: mess. Dishes, tissue papers, cutlery and beer glasses are thrown all over the place like there’s no tomorrow. Texans had picture perfect trash bins. You leave dirty dishes on the table and next moment you are called on “Sir, you have stuff to take care of”. Americans liked it clean.

Or maybe it was Henrik’s parents’ invitation for a family dinner which eventually made me feel at home in Denmark. I met his mom, dad, brother with his girl friend, grandpa and uncle. They all had gathered to meet me. I dined everything traditional Danish: Flæskesteg, Tortelletter, Kartfoler, Brun sovs, Gele, Asier, Rødbeder. I also won the almond while savoring ris a’la monde med kirseber, got gifts and correctly pronounced ‘Rødgrød med fløde’ as jocularly told to. Grandpa was talking to me in Danish, Henrik translated it in English to which I replied in English and he translated back in Danish to his grandpa.
There are some things money can’t buy. It really can’t.
What a beautiful world.


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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.