Eagerly anticipating my second adventure to India, I never once considered the commission of any form of crime, especially not my demise at the hands of a murderer. I’d never been to Goa, the final leg of the two-week exploration of this incredible country that never ceases to amaze, enthral, and excite me. It represented the much-needed chill time after the Indiana Jones style escapades in Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, and Mumbai.
In true Hollywood motion picture style, the prologue of this pseudo-movie was set thousands of miles away in Wolverhampton, England. My partner, Cara, had attended a school reunion where she’d had a fleeting conversation with a chap called “David,” a born and bred Black Country man – who had once run a restaurant in Goa and would be there when we landed in the sun kissed getaway in south-west India.
Their only ─ somewhat tenuous ─ connection was Goa; they couldn’t be classed as close buddies. The British art of avoidance was proudly adhered to and both parties promised to make future contact. That’s how us Brits do things ─ with no intention of ever following through. If you happen across a British traveller abroad and they say, “Please drop by if you are ever visiting my neck of the woods,” be totally reassured that this isn’t actually an offer and we will be mortified if you choose to take up this vacuous invitation. But on this occasion, a weird thing happened and contact was made.
Initially the plan was simply to meet for drinks in the evening. This seemed pretty convivial to me, and even if I’d never met the guy or his Russian wife before, my risk radar hadn’t picked up anything unusual; they were also prepared to drive to our hotel too!
With hours remaining, a WhatsApp message pinged informing us that a storm had hit their location. Our get-together was off. No great shakes and save light rainfall and a few sparks of distant lightning it was business as usual at our end.
A series of follow up messages contained a consistent overture: come over to us tomorrow ─ and a local taxi would also pick us up. They were keen to meet, yet in essence we were strangers. I drifted off to sleep that night with a niggling doubt – why were they so keen to convene?
My ensuing dream was vivid – we would be murdered and buried in an isolated field, or at least asked to deliver a “package” back home. As an ex-cop this conclusion was somewhat lacking in tangible evidence, although circumstantially the notion was compelling: an enigmatic Mr Big and his equally mysterious Soviet spouse, overtly enthusiastic to meet and who were even prepared to arrange transport to their secret hideaway in the Goan jungle. If my memory hadn’t failed me, I was fairly sure that this was the plot of a James Bond movie too. Nonetheless, this was only in my turbo-charged imagination, and should things get dodgy I had a skill-set that included unarmed combat – admittedly some years redundant.
I shared my vision with Cara who pragmatically suggested that we should simply accept the parcel and leave it at our hotel, or better still, hand it over to the local police. In the former I had visions of having to provide restitution for a deal gone bad and the second choice was no more appealing.
Since landing in India, the local tour guides had regaled us with stories of state corruption and advised if the police ever stopped us, to ensure that we had a picture of Mahatma Gandhi to hand. Conveniently every rupee bank note has a picture of the great man on it.
As we were transported to our potential doom, I recounted the line in the 2011 film “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” when the serial killer remarks on the stupidity of Daniel Craig’s character as he hangs hopelessly in his lair facing imminent dismemberment: “Let me ask you something? Why don’t people trust their instincts? They sense something is wrong, someone is walking too close behind them… You knew something was wrong but you came back into the house. Did I force you, did I drag you in? No. All I had to do was offer you a drink. It’s hard to believe that the fear of offending can be stronger than the fear of pain. But you know what? It is. And they always come willingly…”
So, exactly how good is our intuition and should we ever act upon it? Is it a reliable defence mechanism, or is it vulnerable to exploitation?
Research conducted by scholars funded by the Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscience at the University of Tübingen, Germany, in 2016 differentiated between the – at face value ─ stablemates of intuition and insight, whilst acknowledging that both of these human qualities are sensations born of “non-analytical mental functioning.” In summing up this complex analysis it is fair to say that this cognitive performance is still a mystery, although bias, experience, and environmental factors are used to comprehend a leaning towards a particular outcome even if it’s wide of the actual truth. Insight probably pips its rival, since it is based predominantly on lived experiences, although inherent values – which may be flawed – don’t exactly provide iron clad certainty. Nonetheless, both can, according to the study, support decision making.
Complimentary enquiry by psychological scientists Galang Lufityanto, Chris Donkin, and Joel Pearson, at the University of New South Wales, Australia, into intuition, has nonetheless suggested that decision making is improved when this instinct is activated. Researchers showed participants a serious of emotional pictures that engaged with situations alien to their life perspective and asked that they make a decision based on this first contact. The study concluded that even where people are unfamiliar with the context, they were nonetheless able to make convincing decisions. Joel Pearson explained, “These data suggest that we can use unconscious information in our body or brain to help guide us through life, to enable better decisions, faster decisions, and be more confident in the decisions we make.” The bottom line from this team suggests that intuition is more than just a feeling.
A counter narrative espoused by Professor Eric Bonabeau of Minerva University, San Francisco, focuses upon the fluidity of the term intuition and that by definition it “can be stretched to mean almost anything, from innate instinct to professional judgment to plain-old common sense.” Citing academic colleague Bruce Henderson ─ founder of the Boston Consulting Group – as probably best at defining intuition as “the subconscious integration of all the experiences, conditioning, and knowledge of a lifetime, including the cultural and emotional biases of that lifetime.” The good Professor’s concluding commentary is somewhat more brutal ─ don’t trust your gut.
Where does this exploration lead me? Well, I am pleased to confirm that neither Cara or I came close to being murdered, nor were we encouraged to satisfy a mafia delivery. Instead, we spent the most glorious day with David and his charming wife Marina and very much hope to see them again in the near future.
My gut instinct on this occasion was wholly wrong, yet I was encouraged to accept that in isolation this human trait is probably no better than any game of chance, and a flip of a coin may yield equally good odds; an unwavering reliance on the perceived irrefutable wisdom of instinct may do more harm than good.
As Elvis put it in the classic “Suspicious Minds”:
We’re caught in a trap
I can’t walk out
Because I love you too much, baby
Why can’t you see
What you’re doing to me
When you don’t believe a word I say?
On the other hand, are my dreams an alternative reality? That’s another discussion, but in the meantime don’t have nightmares!
During your waking hours are they behind you? A glance over your shoulder may provide quantifiable evidence to programme you to run like Usain Bolt ─ or simply smile and carry on.
© Ian Kirke 2023 & all uncredited photographs.
@ianjkirke