Goa Freaks: My Hippie Years in India

Goa Freaks: My Hippie Years in India is an account of Odzer’s five years in India, most of them spent in the fog of coke and smack addiction on Anjuna beach in Goa. The book is clearly Odzer’s own account of her life and her experiences in Goa – the title itself suggests this, but it’s difficult not to understand her account of Goa’s Freaks as representative of the entire culture of hippidom in Goa. This is not your classic hippie tale. Cleo’s version of Anjuna is a zone infested with troubled young druggies with a penchant for making pots of money as drug runners. I find it hard to believe that through all her highs and lows, her trips and her going Coke Amuck, she would remember with such clarity the detail of each conversation she had at the time. But few people come off looking good or terribly fascinating in Ozder’s account, which is at its best a great contribution to our understanding of a certain part of a particular culture of the 70s. The hippie communes of Ibiza, Kathmandu and Goa have often been talked and written about but rarely by an insider. Cleo Odzer is herself a former hippie, reincarnated as a respectable academic in the US. She tells the full story, with brutal and uncensored honesty. Even at the risk of portraying herself as a narcissistic, self-centered and a law-breaking guest of Goa. Her story zooms in on that community of aliens which relocated to a tiny stretch of Goa. Though based in Anjuna, the Goa Freaks, as they called themselves, kept links across the globe. There were some in San Francisco. Many temporarily shifted to Bali (Indonesia). Bangkok was a oft-visited destination. They congregated around a few down-market hotels in Mumbai too. But in the monsoon, the Goa Freaks fled the torrential rains and undertook 'scams' -- couriering drugs to distant locations. On this money, they lavishly lived it up in the ensuing season. Returns were high. Drugs bought for $2000 in Asia could retail for $21,843 in Canada. Just to carry somebody else's drugs to Canada, they were paid $8000 to $10,000. On their drug earnings, they lived life to the hilt. En route, they stayed in the Sheratons, the Holiday Inns and the Hiltons, and met contacts at the Taj. Cleo Odzer, returning to Anjuna from Canada one time, meets a friend coming in from Thailand. Take her word for it: "We exchanged knowing smiles. Now I knew how the Goa Freaks made the money to splurge on so much coke (cocaine). Now I knew, because I'd been initiated. I was really one of them." Odzer narrates how she opened her "dope den," called the Anjuna Drugoona Saloona, after boldly tacking handwritten adverts throughout the beach! Her description of the outdoor and indoor parties clearly suggest these are fueled by persons linked to the drug trade which is far more organized than most of us could dream of. Odzer suggests the Goa police failed to be vigilant in curbing the drug trade. Despite reading her letters and raiding her home, they simply let her off. In comparison, even Thailand was very strict on drugs, and Bali was firm even against nudism. This is not a story of Goa. It is a story of the hippies' escapades, which has Anjuna as the backdrop only incidentally. Nonetheless, it is fascinating reading.