Walking the last 15 minutes, I paused only once inside the safety of the hotel.

The rest of the night was uneventful, or so I thought. Assignment done, I joined the party-goers inside, sampling various cuisines towards the end of what I thought was going to be an uneventful night. I thought so only until it was time to leave.

The beach is a mere 100 metres away from the swanky J W Marriott. Knowing there would be a mammoth crowd streaming out of the beach, I didn’t leave until as late as possible. The party ended at 2.30 am and, a friend in tow, I decided to call it a night.

To our surprise, at the hotel gates, we heard a huge commotion what looked like thousands of people just walking along the road in both directions. Police presence was unimaginably strong. The hotel security guards solemnly told us not to leave the hotel without a vehicle. “It’s not safe to take madam out,” he told my friend. He also offered to get the hotel’s taxi service to drop us off.

We declined—it was already late and waiting for the hotel cab would mean a further delay. We slipped out from the other gate. And immediately found ourselves struggling to plow ahead in a thick crowd; all men, no women apart from those emerging from the Marriott.

I wrapped my shawl tightly around me, clutched my equipment bag close to my body and stuck smack behind my friend while he fought his way out of the melee. It was a sea of men; an unruly, heaving mass that was five-six men deep in space meant for two. They walked as though they owned the road, bumping into people, jeering and peeking into autorickshaws. Almost everybody was heavily drunk—you didn’t need a breath analyser to prove that.

It was only a three-minute walk at most, but an ordeal nonetheless. Thankfully, we found an empty autorickshaw. I felt safer inside. But I didn’t feel completely safe until we were well past the men peering into the rickshaw.