India, Oct. 16 -- I reached Anjuna at 3 am after a terribly delayed flight and, by the time I finally got into bed at Sobit, one of Cezar Pinto's cottages in South Anjuna, I had already accepted that the next morning was going to be rough. I had barely four hours before I needed to wake up again. Strangely, at 7 am, I felt rested. I think it was the ocean. You can hear the Arabian Sea from the cottage, not as an overpowering roar but as a constant rhythm somewhere behind everything else. Through the night, those waves became almost like white noise for a very disturbed, very tired mind. Four hours of sleep had absolutely no business feeling that good, but somehow they did.

Later that morning, I sat down with Cezar Pinto with the ocean pr...