December 15th, 2010
I was up early on Wednesday morning probably thanks to a
combination of the uncomfortable mattress, noisy guards and the excitement of
it being my eighth and almost certainly last night in police lockup. On the second day after I was first arrested,
Sachin mentioned that if I couldn’t afford a lawyer that the state would
provide one but I could be in lock up for 6-8 days. At the time I couldn’t contemplate another
two nights in jail but here I was, over a week later...I guess it can be done.
Dinesh and Shawn were both happy for me and Dinesh even paid
the grumpy, old and seemingly always drunk man who usually brings the food to
obtain some cookies which greatly added to the breakfast meal’s stale bun. The morning could not end soon enough.
Around 10:30am I was called out of the cell and was not pleased
when I saw Sachin sitting at a desk preparing a statement for me. It began by just stating who I was, passport
number, address etc. He then wanted to
know what happened on the day I was arrested and I had finally wised up and
stopped him there and said I wasn’t going to answer any questions without my
lawyer present. In disgust he ordered a
guard to put me back in the cell...fine by me.
Unfortunately 11:30 came and went. Soon it was after 1pm and lunch was
delivered. I was hungry but decided to
only eat half of the meal, optimistically saving some room for some pizza that
I craved to have when I got out.
Around 3pm I was told to collect my items in the cell and
come into the main office area. Caroline
wasn’t there yet but they were returning from south Goa with all of the
paperwork to get me out. I guess they
had to drive a long way and actually went to a judge’s house to get the deal
done. Sachin had me sit down across the
desk from him and tried again to play buddy buddy. He asked about my education and for some odd
reason he wanted to know my university.
I told him “Ontario University”.
He also wanted my email address so I questioned back why he needed that. “Just to pass on any messages or information
or send pictures.” Huh? “No, you can contact me through my lawyer” I
stated.
He then pulled out his digital camera and proceeded to show
me a horrific picture of a dead woman by a railroad track whose leg had been
severed. Thanks. “Want to see the photos of the woman who
burned herself to death?” he offered.
“No thanks. Immolation is just
not my cup of tea.”
The minutes crept along but thankfully Sachin got up and
left to his office. I pulled out my book
and tried to read but after every sentence I looked up at the entrance and then
the clock. When will Caroline
arrive? It can’t come fast enough. Eventually she and Rebecca walked in...yes! After a couple of minutes of perusing the
forms with Sachin, I was told to sign the bail release. Having learned my lesson from my first few
days in lockup, I double checked with Caroline that I should sign it, signed it
and then we walked out the door. What a
feeling! Freedom!
I chatted with Zohar on Caroline’s cell and she had wanted
to come to pick me up but she had missed Caroline’s call a half hour earlier to
give her a head’s up as to when to leave Arambol. I thanked Zo for the offer but since it would
be another half an hour for her to arrive I declined her offer. I just wanted to get away from the police
station as fast as possible. With
Caroline’s help I was soon on a motorbike taxi riding off towards Arambol. Since I was first taken to the Pernem police
station in the dark, I actually had no real clue where I was in relation to
Arambol Beach. It was quite a nice ride
along a twisty road by a river lined with palm trees and then up onto a plateau
with longer, straight roads. I couldn’t
help but smile the entire ride back. In
fact I videoed myself saying “I’m free” in Hindi and also singing “Freedom,
freedom, freedom!” (an Aretha Franklin song “Think” that was in the Blues
Brothers movie).
Happy on the motorbike taxi:
"I'm free!" (said in botched Hindi)
Freedom, Freedom, Freedom!
I paid the driver and then walked down onto the beach. It looked familiar but also felt
different. I was looking at the place
through new eyes and with an overwhelming sense of relief. I immediately headed down to the water and
walked through the surf with my flip flops on.
I wanted to wash off as much of that dirty cell from me as soon as
possible. As I headed south towards the
Olive Garden restaurant, I saw three of the staff chucking a Frisbee
around. When they finally spotted me
they yelled out my name and came running to me to give me some big hugs. Wow!
What a feeling. Heading up to the
restaurant I was greeted by some more of the staff and then Zohar appeared with
a small bowl of flower petals which she tossed in front of me. More hugs, more smiles, more elation. The French couple I was with when I was
arrested, Daniel and Marie, had returned from traveling in another region just
to see me. A bottle of champagne was
popped open to begin a fantastic night of celebration. It turned out to also be the 50th birthday of
a Portuguese woman Ana so it was in fact a double party...what an evening!
Back on Arambol Beach:
Greetings from my guardian angel:
Cheers!
The celebration dinner:
The next few days I had more ups and downs. The gravity of the next phase of the ordeal,
a trial, sank in. I desperately wanted
to get in contact with my sisters. I
walked to an Internet cafe on the main street on the second evening of my
release hoping to catch my sisters via Skype.
I happen to pick a cafe I’d never used before and I sat down at one of
the four archaic computers. Just as I
began to fire up Skype, the Internet connection was lost. I thought, well, what to do? So I just looked at the desktop on the
computer and saw that someone had saved some pictures there. I decided to take a gander because who knows,
it might be a picture of some hot tourist in a bikini on the beach...well it
was quite the opposite. The first
picture showed a large truck filled with bags that were identical to the bags
of rice that lined the police station wall while I was incarcerated and there
were the four rice smugglers with distraught faces while the three policemen in
the picture were grinning ear to ear.
Two of the policemen were involved in my arrest. What are the chances? Of the myriad of Internet cafes I should choose
this one, then pick this computer and then happen to look at the picture, which
I assume was from the newspaper article of their arrest, of the men I had
recently shared a cell with!
The Internet connection did not return so the following
morning I woke up early and headed back to the main street to try and contact
my sisters. It was 9am and the main
street was quite devoid of life but I saw this man way off in the distance
walking my way and for some reason he looked familiar. “Deano?”
I yelled out. It was him. I had met Deano a couple months earlier in
France at the Coupe Icare Festival. Wow,
if I ever needed to see a friendly face it was now! He had no idea that I was in Arambol, nor did
I know that he was coming for a 5 week stay.
Another strange coincidence, but this time an amazing and emotionally
lifting one!
I finally was able to get in contact with my eldest sister
Julie and I explained what had happened.
Hearing her voice meant a lot and I was close to tears by the end of the
call. Knowing that the love and support
of my family would be unwavering through this predicament was amazingly
reassuring. She was going to pass on the
news to the rest of my family and comforted me by saying a phrase that our
mother used to say to us: “Keep your chin up.”
One of my bail conditions was that I had to report to the
police station every day for a week between 10am and 1pm and then once a month
after that. Thankfully it was a fun road
to ride on a scooter, passing by small villages with windy roads snaking
through some lush jungle that eventually ran alongside a beautiful river. I was also required to stay in the state of
Goa unless I had permission from the court to leave which the lawyer said
shouldn’t be a problem. Caroline told me
when we first met at the police station that the whole legal affair could take
upwards of 7-8 months to be resolved so I figured I was really going to get to
know India.
Daniel and Marie were with me at the time that I was
arrested so I went with them to a nearby small city called Mapusa (more
commonly known as Mapsa) to see the lawyer.
They wanted to provide a statement in hopes that it might help me with
my case. We met the senior partner of
the law firm, Peter de Souza and after speaking with him I felt a lot better
about my situation. He told me that I
should not stress about the case and claimed that there was a 99.9% chance that
I would not face any jail time and in the unlikely possibility that I did, that
the sentence would likely be the eight days that I have already served. He told me that I should go out and explore
and enjoy India. Wow, I felt a huge
weight lifted off of my shoulders although there would continue to be a cloud
over my head until it was completely resolved.
Who knows what the lawyer fees may
end up costing me but that would be a small price to pay should my name be
cleared and I definitely didn’t want to spend any more time in jail.
I endeavoured to take the positives out of this whole
ordeal. I gained a new appreciation for
freedom and did realize that many people face a much worse situation. Live and learn right?
I can’t say enough about my new friends who
helped me through this initial and frightening stage of my ordeal here. Zohar was my guardian angel. She stayed longer than she expected to in Goa
just to make sure I got out. She came to
the police station almost every day, helped me get a new lawyer and provided
mental and emotional support. Her
friends Avishai and Noa also came to see me a couple of times. Israelis sure know how to band together when
the going gets tough and to stick up for what they believe in. And then there’s the French couple, Daniel
and Marie, who visited me on the first day, travelled back 10-12 hours in order
to provide support for me and visited the lawyer’s office twice in order to
give their statements. Thanks
everyone...you have made a large deposit into the Karma jar.
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