Brian Conley's News & Notes

I’m living in Goa now, as you already know if you read my earlier post about my unfortunate accident in Calangute. I live about 3 kilometers from the Video Volunteers office, where I’m coordinating a new Community Journalism program for them this year. I don’t have a car yet, and I may be too much of a hazard to myself and fellow drivers on a scooter. So given that, I walk to work, and nearly end up walking home as well every day.

Motorbikes are a common method of travel for many in Goa, so its possible I’ll decide to trade up from my trusty Keens to something a little more Bladerunner meets MadMax.

Public, consider yourself warned.

Part of what makes the commute so great is the scenery. For the time being the weather is always delightful, not too hot in the morning and pleasantly cool in the evenings.

If I didn’t walk I’d have to pay through the nose for taxis, even without my recent history with the Goan Taxi Mafia, I’d not be likely to take that option. I’ve recently heard that the public bus may be an option, but then I’d get dropped at the beach and have to walk away from the beach in order to get to the office. I’d likely never make it.

Further, I like to walk, and since I’ve thus far spent most of everyday at work hunched over my laptop, clicking and typing away, I’m sure I could use the exercise. So far the commute has tended to be fairly uneventful, aside from the occasional need to dodge a speeding tour bus, or evade the droppings of wayward cattle. I hope it stays that way, although by the time the monsoons arrive, I’ll hopefully have purchased a car and found another way to get my daily exercise!

I’ve added a couple more photos below, to provide a broader feel for what the scenery is like here:

These locations are two interesting landmarks on the walk between Arpora and Baga Bridge, which is exactly where Video Volunteers is located.

The image to the left shows a large store that sells Buddhist art objects and furniture. They rarely, if ever, appear to have customers, and its been posited by some of my colleagues that it may be a front.

To the right you’ll see the entrance to Mackie’s Saturday Nite Bazaar, the epicenter of social life in Arpora/Baga on a Saturday night. Those in the know prefer to head to the Anjuna Saturday night market, I’ve not made it there yet.

Last, but not least, on the road between Nagowa and Baga is the often seen, Temple Elephant, making an appearance for the tourists, offering photos in exchange for a small donation. You’ll note the elephant on the left, I’m on the right, once again on my way to work.

I’m sure most everyone from the “developed world” or the so-called “West” who might be reading this has had some experience with a car accident, whether someone backing into them, or running another car off the road(i won’t tell you which one I am…).  Here in India things are resolved a bit differently—->

Yes, that is a tire driving over my foot. That was the first moment I noticed the red Swift taxi outside of the collective din on the street outside Norm’s in Calangute. I was pissed. This <expletive-deleted> had just driven into me in his hurry to get through the crowded traffic, driven over me, and then continued on.

Had I known more about Indian traffic courtesy I would have swallowed my indignance and driven on immediately, and quickly. Instead I chased him, as he was in fact pulling off to the side of the road just ahead. With proper first-world indignance I started yelling at him immediately for driving like an ass and crashing into me while I was stopped on the side of the road.

He came at me like a thug and immediately turned off the ignition on my scooter, I went for the key and he pulled it out. Remembering everything I’ve learned the last 5 years around the world, I held on to that key and wouldn’t let go until I’d pried it back out of his hand.

“Why you drive like this? You pay me!”

At this point I was really shocked, and I also began to realize I had certainly gotten in a bit over my head. At the same time I was sure this guy was at fault.

Moments later I was surrounded by a dozen indian guys who apparently had nothing better to do than stand around and watch the spectacle. Looking back I wonder if this wasn’t some kind of reversed social roles post-colonial justice-letting, but in the moment I was only thinking about Robert Fisk’s story of being beaten by a mob in Afghanistan and having to fight his way out.

After I had the keys, the guy grabbed my headphones cord and I told him to let go, the cord snapped, just at the point of the connection to the iPhone in my pocket. I’m lucky to have a wonderful mother-in-law who saw fit to gift me a pair of Bose Mobile-on-Ears, which have a detachable headphone-to-player cord, otherwise I’d quite likely be out a pair of much-too-expensive headphones.

This guy wouldn’t budge. He just kept saying “You give me money!”

Of course at the moment I had maybe 230 rupees, given that I had been on my way to work when a colleague lent me the scooter to try and get a feel for it. Little did I know my first day on a scooter would turn into my first accident on a scooter.

What you have to understand is that all these guys surrounding me are there for the spectacle, and they may or may not know what the situation is. Either way, they’re on the other guys side, not yours.

Moments later I was crashing back into this crowd of guys as the taxi-thug pushed me hard in the chest. I wasn’t having any of it, and apparently he wasn’t either. He wanted me to go to “my hotel” and come back with the money. It was about this time he grabbed the headphones around my neck, which are worth roughly 10 times the amount of money he was trying to extort.

It seemed that he was willing to agree to go with me to “my hotel” which, as I told him repeatedly, didn’t exist because I am working for an Indian trust organization, and my *house* is quite a ways off in Arpora, toward Nagowa. So what you’ll notice if you ever get into a similar situation is that its never just one guy you’ll have to deal with, it’s one guy, plus his “posse.”

So taxi thug got into the car, another guy was driving, and a third guy climbed into the back seat. Apparently none of them spoke passable English, which, in my experience thus far, is a bit strange for Goa. I got in the back, but wouldn’t close the door, I expected if I’ve agreed to go with them on a ride to get the money this guy wanted, he should do me the decency of giving my stuff back.

To recap, at this point he had my headphones, the headphones cable, oh and my sunglasses which he picked up after pushing me down into the scooter. They really have a discourteous way of dealing with people they don’t like/consider fools, however I can’t help wondering if they didn’t learn it from their British and Portuguese colonial forebears…

So, misunderstanding what I wanted apparently, they reshuffled the car and taxi-thug climbed in back with me. Apparently in colloquial Konkani the appropriate reaction at this point, to someone making a reasonable request that you disagree with, is a punch in the head.

Fortunately I was still wearing the scooter helmet. Also fortunately, when taxi-thug jumped out of the car and came around, apparently ready to give me a full-on beating, the crowd came to my aid and talked him down.

To resolve this rather rambling story, let’s just say, I paid the man. Which is lucky for me, as I was informed later by my Indian colleagues, had I been capable of calling the police(I didn’t yet have an operational mobile), I would have only ended up paying “The Man,” and I’d have had to pay him 5 times taxi-thug’s going rate, as a pay-off for violating the “driving without a license” ordinance.

Which is how I learned that in India, if a taxi driver crashes into you, you drive away, very fast, and hope he can’t catch you.

PS. Thanks to Keen’s awesome sandals, my foot survived.

PPS. Any endorsement of a product is mine alone, and not related to sponsorship of any kind.