Cleo Odzer - Goa Freaks - My Hippie Years in India

Late that afternoon, I stood by the bus dodging the outstretched hands of beggars. I ran to meet Julian as he came down the street. "Guess what? We have a room at the Taj!"

"What? At the TAJ?"

I ignored the Look Tom gave the sky as if searching for my spaceship. "I met a nice Indian man. I'm going to dinner with him, but meet you afterward. About ten? How's that?"

"Who is this man?"

"Oh, a man. I've got to go get ready." I kissed his neck and bit his shoulder. "We have a room at the Taj!" I did a little dance, kissed him again, and hurried off.

At six o'clock I met Prim Indian in the hotel bar, where a sign declared, PERMIT HOLDERS ONLY. Indians needed a special license to drink in the state of Maharastra, a "dry" state. Goa, on the other hand, was a "wet" state—anyone could drink there. We had a few gin and tonics and then joined his friends in the dining room. After dinner and a tour of the lobby shops, I announced I was tired and going to bed.

"At so early an hour?" said Prim Indian.

"I've been on a bus two whole days. Thanks for dinner."

With the hotel key in hand, I headed for the elevator. Before it came, though, I made sure Prim Indian had returned to the bar; then I snuck out the back door of the lobby. Prim Indian will probably call the room soon with an urgent reason for me to let him in for a moment. Too bad. I wouldn't be there.

I met the boys by the bus.

"How was your, you know, dinner?" asked Tom sarcastically.

"Oh, yum. Steak with mushroom gravy. What are we doing?"

"We thought we'd go to Sukalatchi Street to see the girls in cages," Julian told me. "It was Tom's idea."

"What's cages'?"

"Sukalatchi Street is the red light district of Bombay. We heard the prostitutes are kept in cages. There's supposed to be an opium den there too. What do you think?"

"An Opium den! Sure. Let's go. But is opium anything like hash? I'm trying not to smoke that anymore. What's it like?"

"We've never tried it. This will be a new experience for us all."

We took a taxi to the tiny, crowded street. It was so filled with people, pushcarts, ox carts, cows, and bicycles that the taxi couldn't drive into it, and we had to get out and walk. Oh, horrors! Creepy people pressed against me. Beggars followed us, motioning to their mouths and clutching our sleeves. It was loud and noisy, and everyone seemed to be yelling something at me.

"I can't stand this," I complained. "Where are we going?"

While Julian stopped for directions, Tom pulled me along, grinning at my unease. A woman beggar grabbed the back of my skirt and walked with us. A filthy child massaged my wrist with a sticky hand and recited, "No mamma, no pappa, one rupee."

"This is horrible. How do we get out of here?" I said. Something had its fingers in my hair, and now a little girl wrapped herself around my thigh, making it difficult to walk.

"Over this way."

Finally—leaving four people on the doorstep calling us—we entered a dim hallway and mounted steps that slanted at a forty-five-degree angle. I could hardly see, but at least it was quiet. Too quiet, actually—bordering on spooky.

An awful stink greeted us on the second floor as we turned a corner onto a balcony. A door stood open, revealing an old Lady on a stool. "Opium? Smoke, you know, opium?" tried Tom.

"Eh? Chando ?" She pointed us farther down the balcony.

We weren't sure we were in the right building. We kept going and came to another open door, this one covered by a dirty cloth. We looked in on old men lying on the floor. They waved at us and motioned we were to leave our shoes by the door.

"I think this is it."

We were ushered to a corner. A stained towel was laid for each of us with a wooden block positioned for our heads. Three brass cups brimming with brown liquid were placed nearby.

"I guess we're supposed to, you know, he down."

Tom smoked first. The opium baba (spiritual leader) stretched out next to him and fiddled with the wick of a kerosene lamp, after which followed a complicated procedure. The baba dipped a rod into the opium and held the tip over the flame. It bubbled. He rolled it over the bowl of the pipe, dipped again, and cooked it some more.

I went after Tom. I was worrier opium would confuse me the way hash did. Putting the end of the two-foot-long pipe in my mouth, I inhaled as the baba held the bowl over the flame. My lungs filled to bursting with smoke. The second lungful made me cough. The baba laughed. I laughed. My body relaxed into the grimy floor. As I liquefied, the hard floor turned mushy and yielding. The wooden block beneath my head became a goose-down pillow. I'd never felt so comfortable. When I finished a cup it was Julian's turn. I couldn't wait to smoke another. We each had one more cup and then left.

It was hard to keep my eyes open. I leaned heavily against Julian as we exited onto the street. It didn't seem so bad out there anymore. Nobody reality bothered me. The beggars, hustlers, and shifty characters holding my sleeve didn't annoy me one bit. No problem. I smiled at a raggedy urchin under my feet. Forgetting about the girls in cages, we bungled into a taxi, and, after dropping Tom at the bus, Julian came to the hotel with me.

The doorman and the bell captain looked aghast as Julian, the dirty hippie, strode into the elevator. We giggled hysterically as we stumbled down the corridor to the room, brushing against someone's doorknob and knocking off the DO NOT DISTURB sign.

"Let's take a bath," Julian suggested when I showed him the marble bathroom.

The giant tub easily accommodated both of us, and we placed two monstrous pillows on opposite ends of the tub. In an instant, we fell asleep in the hot water. By the time we woke, the water was cold and the pillows soaked. We laughed ourselves out of the bathroom, one pulling up the other as we took turns falling on the floor, and barely making it to the bed. I started to feel sick.

"Uh-oh, I think I'm nauseous," I moaned.

"So am I."

Pretty soon I felt sicker than I had in all my life. The rest of the night consisted of our taking turns vomiting. The marble floor was no longer appreciated when, head in the toilet, we had to kneel on it. I wanted to the.

I felt the same the next day. Tom phoned. He was sick too, but because so much had to be done, he persuaded Julian to crawl out of bed and meet him. I stayed in bed. That night I was still sick. We ordered room service but couldn't look at the food when it came. When Prim Indian called, I told him, honestly, that I was deathly ill. We were to leave the next day. "I'll call you when I come back to Bombay," I promised with no intention of doing so.

The next morning, I felt no better and, in desperation, went to the hotel pharmacy. "Please," I begged the grey-haired pharmacist, "I visited one of your opium dens the other day, and I think I'm going to the."

His stern face almost smiled as he handed me a packet of pills. Within an hour, I felt fine.

Arriving in Delhi, we headed for the seedy section of Old Delhi, looking for a cheap hotel. None of us had much money left. Julian and I found a minuscule, windowless room on a balcony surrounding a courtyard. Beds lined the balcony itself, and a napping Indian raised the handkerchief covering his face to watch us pass. That night, when we returned from dinner, we had a crisis. Julian was missing a five-pound note.

"Did you take it?" he asked, looking at me suspiciously.

"No! I did not take it." How could he ask such a question? He thought I stole his money? I crossed my arms and moved to a corner of the room.