First column for Danish newspaper 'The CBS Cornet'

Dear Dad,

I hope everything is great at home and that mom is enjoying her post-retirement life. How’s my little angel Unchi growing up?

Ah, I did finally reach Denmark and currently staying with my Danish room mate Henrik. Statistically, they say it’s the home of the eighth highest per capita beer consumption on our planet. Watching Henrik and his friends indulge in their half hourly beer guzzling conventions, no wonder Danish beer recycling has been in existence since the days of Ford Model T. Henrik once suggested, in all seriousness, only if the government could supply beer directly through the existing water pipes in homes. I just stood listening. Beer is just everywhere.

Oh, nudity! It’s just everywhere. Young Danes discuss sex, its processes, applications and events so casually like we do about the choice of snacks at 5pm in India. And unlike us, these discussions are democratically inclusive of both the sexes together. Nude women are plastered all over Copenhagen: on buses, gymnasium ads, clothing retailers, posters under flyovers, night clubs and sex shops. I also ‘discovered’ The Museum of Erotica in one of the famous shopping streets, which ironically stands nonchalantly than a silly condom vending machine does in New Delhi. And if you visit Copenhagen, don't get misled by associating the omnipresent spray painted '69' with anything even close to mating. From outright stunning to stunningly outrageous and in all possible inappropriate places, graffiti is just everywhere.

Dad, analogically speaking, moving from Texas to Copenhagen was like Danish football team losing to Faroe Islands 0-4 in a home game.

I finally could relate myself to comparable physical human dimensions after cohabiting with XXL Texans. Shopping became easy to find right fit clothes at first try, talking became easy without your neck pointing up all the time and introduction became easy (for George Bush everybody knew Texas). Bananas finally look like bananas and so does squirrels. Gone are those Shrek size cauliflowers and mushrooms enough to last a week. If ‘everything’s big in Texas’, then everything’s small-medium in Denmark.

Texans don’t walk or cycle, they either jog or drive. Only the unlucky iota travels in buses or trains as there aren’t many. The thought of driving a Volkswagen on Frederiksberg’s 4-lane road would bruise the Texan ego. It’s the home of Ford trucks, $3/gallon petrol and monster highways. And the local delightful sight of a helmet-strapped one-year old on the rear of a bicycle with his mom is only quixotically possible in the Bush land.

Women are beautiful across each side of the Atlantic with the only palpable difference in the quantity of clothes. Sartorially speaking, it’s sleeveless cotton tops, denim shorts and high heels versus hooded overcoats and high boots. While the Texan idea of fashion was big, rough and robust, the Danish version is sleek, chic and minimalist. The Texas classroom had young Texan guys in bland long shorts, T-shirts and baseball caps, Danes come in their low body hugging trousers with colorful mufflers and shoes. Anyways, who would dare don shorts in this gothic Danish weather?

Okay dad, you’ve got to visit Denmark sometime, taste the freshest McDonalds’ burgers on earth and meet Henrik. And I pray to God to shower some more sun to this country; they crave for it like Indians crave for foreign trips and Americans do for free healthcare insurance.

Love to mom, Montu, Pampy and Unchi.
Good night.
Rahul

First unedited article for 'The Battalion'

STATUS REPORT: Texas A&M, College Station, USA
LOCATION: 30º 36’ 5”N, 96º 18’ 52”W
FASHION STYLE: Under investigation
VERDICT: Aggies are fashion laggards

It’s conspicuous.
We are not the fashion campus of Texas or America.
The End.

Now listen why.

Aggieland never was.

We were never the wild child. Jackson Pollock is God here to as many who rate Blocker as the hottest building on campus. We don’t graffitise campus with abstractionism. The African vibrancy, Eastern spiritualism, Parisian suave or Las Vegas flair is as latent as the urge to attend Monday morning class at 8AM.
We are the home of country musicophiles. We are the home of traditions. We are the home of the affable. We are the home of the 12th man. We are not geeks.

We don blue denim with maroon pullovers with yawning regularity. Without doubt, it psychologically dents visiting teams in Kyle Field into ennui; unfortunately enough, it does with the same effect outside. And the potently seductive intelligentsiastic campaign in a long time ‘Saw ‘em Off’ is being (pur)sued by UT. Maybe it’s the UT’s undercover conspiracy not to let us climb the satirical-fashion ladder.

“Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening” once spake fashion First Lady Coco Chanel.
Yes, the braids are there. Yes, the noses and ears are pierced.
Yes, the handbags glitter. Yes, the Beetle (over)speeds University Drive with chicks.
Yes, there is Jack E. Brown engineering building. Yes, there are Corp Cadets.
And yes, there is North Gate (at Friday 1AM).
But, we don’t (won’t) set the ramp afire.
College Station is as laid back as a crocodile in the sun, we love the weather, we love driving the trucks, there is no rush to out compete anybody and the campus is Bushesquely imposing and boring.
We are happy. But we aren’t sexy.

Remedy?

1. Drape Blocker building.
2. Or blame UT. I’m with you.

God bless America.
God bless Texas A&M.
God dress Texas A&M.

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news/2007/02/09/Opinion/Maroons.Out-2708984.shtml