A hippie had startled me

(Image from Net)

It was 1982. I was in Panjim with our official cricket team. Most of us were visiting Goa for the first time. It was a 10-day tour and so we had lots of free time between matches (unlike now) to go around the beautiful place of which we had heard much and also studied in school about the Portuguese occupation in Goa. Since it is a renown tourist destination, we never missed visiting the beautiful beaches, unique temples, traveling in local buses, walking around in streets that were clean and calm what with a good November weather.

One evening, some of us had gone to visit a couple of beaches. We were in Anjuna. The group had itself divided into little sub groups and I found myself with Gopal and the twosome was strolling casually, sandals in hand, because it was difficult to walk with the sandals on, on the fine sand. I was looking excitedly at the surroundings and enjoying the cool breeze that was trying to cool some sweat off.

The sun was about to set and light was getting dimmer. Suddenly we saw a hippie chasing people in great hurry and searching their bags. We thought it might be something and kept walking. All of a sudden, he was heading towards us from behind. We were startled and terrified as we feared danger from this stranger. My friend did not have a bag but I had one on the shoulder. He appeared to be frantically looking at something and opened my bag too. I heaved a great sigh of relief when he left us alone and sprinted to the next person in sight as he found nothing that he had in mind, in my bag.

Soon afterward, we came to know that he was looking for someone who had a camera with which he had clandstinely shot a picture of him and his female friend on the beach. When he noticed it, he had begun chasing him for his camera, obviously to open the camera and spoil/expose the film. Those were days when not many owned film cameras.

Charles Sobhraj's name was doing the rounds at that time.

The Hippie culture had come to Goa. Who were hippies?

Anjuna Beach - some info in Wiki.

History of Goa.

Soon our group gathered and returned to our staying place and Gopal found much pleasure in describing the incident to others. Goa was a very calm place then and it still retains much of such charm. The hippie movement was then a bit past its peak.