Cleo Odzer - Goa Freaks - My Hippie Years in India

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With special thanks to Richard Franken for his continuing friendship since these old Goa days and for his help and support with this book and with Patpong Sisters. I'd also like to acknowledge his photographic talent. Many of the photos used here are his.

"BAKSHEESH," MUTTERED the beggar, thrusting his palm at me as I walked through the Colaba section of Bombay. He should have recognized me by now. In that rainy monsoon, could there have been more than one young foreign woman with blue eyes, blonde hair, and a diamond in her nose? He had not gotten a rupee from me yet, and I'd been down that street every day the past week. Glaring at him, I swerved to avoid the palm of another barefoot beggar, a boy in tattered shorts. Something told me they'd had more to eat more than I had.

I waved my arm and yelled, "CELLO," one of the few Hindi words I'd managed to pick up during my four years in India. "GO! GET AWAY!"

At the end of the block I turned left to head back to the hotel, which had rusty streaks and the ceiling and jumbo water bugs in its communal shower. The day hadn't seen rain yet, but dark clouds foretell that it soon would. Yesterday's deluge still flooded the streets, and the bottom of my ankle-length skirt had a muddy line that would probably never wash out. How would I survive the next two months of this? All my friends had left for the summer. Nobody would deliberately spend a monsoon season in India if they could help it. Only the losers got stuck in the rain.

"Cleo! Cleo!" I heard someone shout, and I turned to see Birmingham Bobby running toward me. I couldn't believe the scruffy sight of him. Gone was the thick gold jewellery of two years before and his cocky poise. Pimples now polka-dotted his once-smooth skin. "Hello, love," he said, kissing me with enthusiasm and no hint of the former bad feelings between us. "How're you doing? You look great. Got any smack?"

His hopeful grin shrunk as I shook my head and answered, "Only opium."

He grunted. "I'm sick of opium!" As his eyes searched the street for another potential source of free drugs, he related his latest failure in the export business. Then he sighed. "It's not easy here anymore, is it, love?"

"Nothing worked for me this year, either," I told him. "I came to Bombay to keep from starving in Goa. Bila from Dipti's allows me one mango ice cream a day on credit, and Yatin from Spaceways Travel lent me rupees for a few days at the Crown Hotel. I don't know what do when that money runs out."

"Bloody daft how I'm broke," said Bobby, turning around to scan behind him. "Stiffies Hotel threw me out for not paying the bill. I've been sleeping on the street ever since."

Holy cow. I'd heard of down-and-outers who slept on the street with the Indian beggars, but I'd never known one before. Though his was one of the only friendly faces I'd run into, I had an urge to escape him; but before I could utter an excuse, he spotted someone else he knew and dashed off without a goodbye.

To cross an avenue I stepped into a foot of black flood water. Not bothering to raise my stick, I let its already-stained hem float as I waded across. Sleeping on the street with the beggars! Could that happen to me? How far from that was I, anyway? Even with only one ice cream a day, my credit at Dipti's wouldn't last forever, and I'd run out of people who could lend me money. Had he still been a five and able to see me, my nice Jewish father, with his Ritz hotel in Miami Beach, would have med. My nice Jewish mother in New York still thought I was a successful model, though it had been years since I'd sent her a magazine clipping. No, I couldn't let myself fall to that beggar level. Even if it meant leaving India for good.

But I didn't want to leave India. This was my home. Goa was my dream, my fantasy paradise. I couldn't leave it. Everything would be better in the fall, when I could return there—to my house; to Bach, the dog I missed so much; to the nightly beach parties. It was deserted in Goa now—the houses boarded up, the restaurants closed—but as soon as the monsoon ended, my friends would return and it'd be jumping. Goa was my home. I just had to survive the next two months, then I could get back to it.

Having rejected the thought of Rachid for more than a week, I decided Ihad no choice but to involve myself with the slimy Indian. Rachid—yuk. The name "Rancid" would have suited him better.

I detoured to leave messages for Rachid at a juice stand and a shop selling yogurt-type drinks called lassies , and then continued to the hotel. In my room, I avoided brushing the walls and their layer of crud. I didn't sit on the chair, where leatherish filth speckled the upholstery. Touching anything in the room brought shivers to my skin. Before I lay down, I spread a kimono over the bed to hide the sheet's circles of yellow and grey. To endure that place, I'd had to shut a sensor in my brain, the sensor of aesthetics.

On the street the next day, Rachid pulled up beside me in a car crammed with Indian men. Like wolves and coyotes, Rachid and his men travelled in packs.

"Hello, darling," he said. "What can I do for you? Want cocaine?"

I told him I needed to make money. "Don't you have people cashing checks for you or something?" I asked. I'd heard rumours about his underworld businesses.

"For you, darling, I have something better. Something safer."

The job he had in mind did concern checks, traveller’s checks to be specific, and was part of an Operation he ran in several cities. Apparently Rachid had a network of Indians and foreigners working together. In Step One of the scam, his Indians hunted tourists. I would enter in Step Two, where the tourists were conned into parting with their traveller’s checks. Cashing them was the last and riskiest step, and Rachid had a separate group of foreigners for that.

My sensor for compassion must have been numbed also; didn't care what the job entailed.

"Darling, you go back to the hotel and wait," he told me. "We will call you when we're ready. Someone will go with you until you learn the routine. Here is a hundred rupees. Go eat. You need smack? You know you can always come to me, darling. Rachid will take care of you."

I wasn't at the hotel long before I received the phone call. I'd picked up a feast of food, and the call came after I'd wolfed down a pepper steak and was gobbling the third raspberry doughnut. I wasn't sure how the scam worked. I did know I was to play the role of a tourist, removed the diamond from my nose and put on my "government dress," the one I wore to renew my visa. Another crowded car pulled up to the hotel, this time without Rachid, and I squeezed in between an Indian and a seedy looking Frenchman who had dirty hair and dandruff.

"We have an American waiting in a cafe," one of the Indians told "This is your husband." He pointed to Dandruff, who managed a droopy-eyed greeting. Rachid probably employed every junky in Bombay. The Indian continued, "You are to pretend you made money with us yesterday and are back today to make more. Here, take these traveller’s checks. Do not worry. It is easy."

At that moment, my stomach was so nice and full I couldn't have felt other than blissfully content. And one more raspberry doughnut awaited my return.

The car left a block from the café as light rain began. When we walked in. Dandruff recognized another one of Rachid's men, who waved us to the table where he sat with a crew-cut American.