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 July 1979

"BAKSHEESH," MUTTERED the beggar, thrusting his palm at me as I walked through the Colaba section of Bombay. He should have recognized me by now. In that rainy monsoon, could there have been more than one young foreign woman with blue eyes, blonde hair, and a diamond in her nose? He had not gotten a rupee from me yet, and I'd been down that street every day the past week. Glaring at him, I swerved to avoid the palm of another barefoot beggar, a boy in tattered shorts. Something told me they'd had more to eat more than I had.

I waved my arm and yelled,  "CELLO," one of the few Hindi words I'd managed to pick up during my four years in India. "GO! GET AWAY!"

At the end of the block I turned left to head back to the hotel, which had rusty streaks and the ceiling and jumbo water bugs in its communal shower. The day hadn't seen rain yet, but dark clouds foretell that it soon would. Yesterday's deluge still flooded the streets, and the bottom of my ankle-length skirt had a muddy line that would probably never wash out. How would I survive the next two months of this? All my friends had left for the summer. Nobody would deliberately spend a monsoon season in India if they could help it. Only the losers got stuck in the rain.

"Cleo! Cleo!" I heard someone shout, and I turned to see Birmingham Bobby running toward me. I couldn't believe the scruffy sight of him.

His hopeful grin shrunk as I shook my head and answered, "Only opium. "

He grunted. "I'm sick of opium!" As his eyes searched the street for another potential source of free drugs, he related his latest failure in the export business. Then he sighed. "It's not easy here anymore, is it, love?"

"Nothing worked for me this year, either," I told him. "I came to Bombay to keep from starving in Goa. Bila from Dipti's allows me one mango ice cream a day on credit, and Yatin from Spaceways Travel lent me rupees for a few days at the Crown Hotel. I don't know what do when that money runs out. "

"Bloody daft how I'm broke," said Bobby, turning around to scan behind him. "Stiffies Hotel threw me out for not paying the bill. I've been sleeping on the street ever since. "

Holy cow. I'd heard of down-and-outers who slept on the street with the Indian beggars, but I'd never known one before. Though his was one of the only friendly faces I'd run into, I had an urge to escape him; but before I could utter an excuse, he spotted someone else he knew and dashed off without a goodbye.