Cleo Odzer - Goa Freaks - My Hippie Years in India

In the afternoon Dandruff and I were driven to a courthouse. Rachid sent a lawyer for us, but I had barely spoken a word to him before being deposited in a lathes' bathroom, where two fat females in white saris guarded me. When they called me to the courtroom, Dandruff and I were pushed through a mob of turbaned Sikh lawyers and their clients. I didn't know when our turn had come. Our lawyer stood three feet, but several people, away, and I couldn't understand a word he said. Then I was led back to the bathroom. What had been decided? What would happen to me now? No one could understand my questions.

In the evening a guard ushered me to a truck. Scores of chained male prisoners were herded inside, and then, after a grilled door had been closed behind them, I was signalled to climb aboard. A long ride later we arrived at Tihar Jail. Machine guns protruded from corner towers. Machine guns! Yippee.

Once we were inside, a guard brought me to a side area. Another female prisoner waited there. She was being searched.

Oh, shit! My Opium. I couldn't lose the opium now. Oh, no!

I hurriedly dog it from my dress and held it in my palm. One of the guards ran her hands over my body. While she searched my feet I shoved the opium under my tongue. She moved up my torso and opened each palm in turn. Nothing there. With my head bent down so she could slide her hands through my hair, I snatched the opium from my mouth and pressed it into my hand again. Next she looked in my mouth—behind every tooth. She was satisfied.

Whew! How had I managed that?

The Indian prisoners went in one direction, and I was led in another through a garden, into a maze of walls.

"Here she is!" I heard suddenly, and I saw two Westerners run to me with big smiles. "Hello, there! Welcome to Tihar. I'm Frin. This is Marie-Andree."

Marie-Andree spoke Hindi to the guard, who then went away. What a relief to be among people I could communicate with—and they seemed thrilled by my arrival. They lavished good wishes on me as they took me to our quarters. Originally isolation cells, the compound now housed foreign nationals.

"We have this whole area for ourselves," I was told. "Tomorrow we'll show you around. Class A prisoners five in a mansion. That's where they kept Indira Gandhi."

"Indira Gandhi was here? Wow!"

"Tihar is a renowned prison," said Frin. "You know the entrance hall you just passed? That's where Sanjay Gandhi made his famous speech after his arrest."

Our compound had ten cells. The three of us occupied the front ones. At the other end lived an Indian prisoner who acted as Frin and Marie-Andree's servant. Her three children stayed with her. The other cells were empty. Each had two rooms: an outer one, with Bars on the front and roof, and an inner one with a toilet, and plastered ceiling and walls. A barred door connected the two rooms. Marie-Andree draped a blanket over mine for privacy. Frin filled my arms with necessary items, like mosquito repellent, toothpaste, and toilet paper.

Marie-Andree had decorated her rooms with pictures, electronics, and brought-in furniture. As the three of us lounged on her comfortable sofa and enjoyed the dinner cooked by the servant, we exchanged information about ourselves.

Marie-Andree, a French Canadian, had been arrested three years before when her boyfriend, Charles Sobraj, was picked up for mass murder. Apparently while the two of them had been travelling Asia, Charles had been leaving a trail of dead bodies. The authorities didn't believe Marie-Andree had been ignorant of Charles's escapades and arrested them together. With her case famous in Canada, Marie-Andree received stacks of letters from people wanting to help her. She even had one from Prime Minister Trudeau.

Frin, an American, had been caught at the airport smuggling hash. She'd been in Tihar eight months. She and Marie-Andree were pleased to have new company and sounded disappointed when I told them I was in for possessing stolen traveller’s checks.

"That's nothing," said Frin. "You won't be here long."

When I asked about buying opium, Marie-Andree said she'd speak to Charles. In the same way he'd enchanted his victims before killing them Charles bad charmed the director of Tihar. He had the run of the prison and met with Marie-Andree several times a day.

At ten o'clock a guard wearing a sari and jingling her keys came to lock the doors. In a last-minute scramble Frin and Marie-Andree checked that I had everything I'd need.

"Here's a candle in case you want to read after lights-out. You have matches? Mosquito repellent?"

Locked in for the night, I moved the mattress to the front cell to sleep under the stars. Tomorrow I wouldn't have to wangle traveller’s checks from tourists. I wouldn't have to stand with hapless vacationers as they realized their vacation funds had been stolen. Tomorrow I wouldn't have to worry about starving or sleeping on the streets. Maybe this wasn't a bad place to spend the monsoon, after all.

Rock and roll blared from Frin's radio next door. When Elvis came on singing "Jailhouse Rock," Marie-Andree asked her to make it louder, danced. I danced with a door knob like I did at the age of thirteen to the TV show "American Bandstand." The blanket-covered door swung open and closed to my steps.

"If you can't find a partner, use a wooden chair, let's rock, let's rock everybody in the old cellblock was dancing to the jailhouse rock."

The next day I joined Marie-Andree for visiting hours. Class A visiting hours. Visits for the lower classes involved crowded clumps of relatives shouting at crowded clumps of prisoners through three sets of bars. The Class A lounge comprised separate areas of tables and armchairs. I was dying to meet Charles. It's not often one is introduced to a mass murderer.

Shortish and handsome, he had a mesmerizing dazzle to him. His gaze projected genuine concern as he informed me that my opium would be delivered the next morning.

Life looked peachy. I hoped the lawyer wouldn't release me too quickly. I hated the thought of going back to hustling tourists. No, this wasn't a bad place at all. I loved jail.

The next morning I lay nude in the sun after a delicious breakfast made by the servant. A guard arrived and motioned for me to collect my things and follow her. When Marie-Andree ran over to investigate the unusual request, I realized something was wrong. Foreign words flew between them. Marie-Andree grew miffed.

"What's happening?" I asked her.

"It is so stupid. They want to move you to Nari Katin."

"What’s that?"

"It is for juveniles! I am telling her you are not a juvenile."

"I'm twenty-nine."

More exasperated words in Hindi.

"You have to go," Marie-Andree said to me. "They think are sixteen."

"That's ridiculous! They have my passport."

"The director does not believe it. He says you do not look more than sixteen."

People always mistook me for younger than my age, but this was crazy. The man had my passport.

My one dress hung where the servant had left it to dry after washing. Frin lent me one of hers. Marie-Andree packed me a basket of fruit and sundries, and I was whisked away. But my opium! I wouldn't survive long without it, and it would be delivered any second!

No way to stall. The guard led me through the compound where Sanjay Gandhi made his speech and out of Tihar by a side door. Along a dirt path parallel to the road, she escorted me to Nari Katin. I was directed through more gateways and finally to an end building.

Within half an hour of arriving at my new residence, I panicked. Nobody spoke English. Not a soul. Not one word. I was surrounded by young girls, some no more than nine or ten, most of them teenagers. At first a supervisor brought me to a dormitory where sixty beds crammed together. Then she took me to a side room with eight beds. She pointed to an empty bed and patted it. It was a bed in function only, bearing little resemblance to what I'd consider the definition of the term. It was wood. No mattress. No pillow. I was presented with a blanket and a folded rag that was supposed to act as a sheet but that did not come close to approaching the ends of the "bed."