Engaging India is an online column analysing the issues, trends and forces behind the business and politics shaping India and its impact on the world. Engaging India appears on Thursday mornings exclusively on FT.com India, a dedicated online section on India, and is written by Jo Johnson, the Financial Times’ South Asia bureau chief; Amy Yee, New Delhi correspondent; and Joe Leahy, Mumbai correspondent.

Some friends and I were whiling away the early hours at one of the ubiquitous shacks serving beer and food on Goa’s Baga Beach one weekend recently, when a wasted-looking man wandered up to us looking for drugs or money, or both.