Police Hassle

Last week Gretchen and I went off-roading on our scooter to catch a sunset from up high. To be honest there isn’t much difference between some of the roads and the dirt path that we were on to get to the top of a hill at Vagator Beach. The scooter was whining a bit at having to use so much effort to get the two of us up.

We finally made it up to the top, and of course my first concern was how to navigate back down after the sun had gone down. I’d figure that part out when needed. We were there, the view was spectacular, overlooking the ocean etc…

Within about 10 minutes we saw two policeman coming up the hill from behind us on a motorcycle. At least I knew that we weren’t the first to get up that hill the way we came on a two wheeler. So, they pull up and we say hello, continuing to take photos while they just stand around us. That part isn’t actually odd for India although it’s not normally the police who are hanging around you.

Then they start, what are you doing here? As if it wasn’t obvious enough that we were taking photos. So I proceed to answer the obvious… “taking photos.” One of them says “What else are you doing? Do you have any drugs? If you have them just give them to me now and no problem.” I quickly reply “Sorry, we don’t have drugs, just taking photos.”

He continued on and I continued on… “If you want to look at our bags, search us etc… please, have a good time.” At this point however, there are a couple of things going through mine and Gretchen’s head I’m sure. One, how long is this going to go on for, they were ruining a perfectly good sunset, for absolutely no reason. Two, were they after compensation? After all, where we come from, that is perhaps one of the stupidest things you could do… hell here in India as well, it’s a slippery slope with no good way of working out. If you give, then they ask for more (and apparently come to you again and again for money) and if they don’t want it, you’re in trouble for offering.

What to do?

Then two more police officers pulled up in a jeep, on top of the hill and of course they start asking all the same exact questions that we’ve been asked already. I gladly offer them my bag to search etc… I definitely didn’t offer them any money.

Eventually they let us go saying that we should be careful that someone doesn’t sneak up on us and steal our bags and take our money. The only people that have scared us so far on the trip have been the police!

Be Well,
David

Tags: Goa, hassle, india, police, sunset