Page 20 of Eva Reddy’s Trip of a Lifetime

Dancing Fiend

I wake to the muted smell of spices and loud music.

I think about opening the window but I’m nowhere near ready to experience India unfiltered.

Instead, I dial up the air conditioning, pick a playlist on my phone that doesn’t feature any Stevie Wonder hits and switch on the kettle.

I need a strong cup of tea. And I need to come up with a solid plan for the day—one that ideally concludes with me locating my parents and facilitating their return to Australia.

I grab a packet of pretzels from my emergency stash of inflight snacks and check news sites for any reports of elderly Australians coming to grief in India. The search comes up empty. That’s a positive. Next stop is my mother’s TikTok account.

I take a nervous sip of tea and find my way back to ‘Reddy, Set, Go’. My mother beams at me from the screen, inviting me to share her travel adventures. As if the damned woman has given me any choice in the matter.

I brace myself for the worst. After the geriatric gyrations of the previous video, I am terrified of what my mother might do next. But there are no new posts for me to dissect. Perhaps that’s a good thing. No fresh material means my parents could still be somewhere in Delhi.

I replay the most recent video, searching the various locations for clues.

Again, I watch as my mother twerks her way around Connaught Place.

And the Red Fort. And the Gateway of India.

All crowded tourist destinations. I could head to one of those places, but my chances of finding someone with any insight into my mother’s current or future whereabouts seem pretty slim.

My best lead is the Bollywood dance studio my mother spruiked at the end of the video. That means outing myself as the daughter of Australia’s oldest Nicki Minaj impersonator, but my ego will survive the blow. I’m not so sure my bewildered father will survive whatever my mother has planned next.

Decision made, I gulp down the last of my tea, tuck a recent photo of my parents into my handbag and head downstairs into the sweltering heat.

There is a long queue of tinsel-embellished, three-wheeled taxis sitting at the front of the hotel.

I scan for Utkarsh, but he isn’t among them.

I know it isn’t logical, but I feel I can trust him.

Or that I can trust him to pull the pin if he thinks one of his side hustles will get me killed.

Still, I am much better equipped to handle a rogue driver today. I am reasonably well rested and I am battle hardened. That’s what I keep telling myself.

I walk to the vehicle that appears the most roadworthy and hand the address of the dance school to the driver.

He is snake hipped and bony shouldered and wearing a long-sleeved checked shirt and threadbare cotton trousers.

A few wispy hairs above his upper lip declare an ambition to one day become a moustache.

The kid can’t be long out of his teens. And as such, hopefully too young to be connected to any criminal syndicates.

He looks at the address. No suggestion that my destination is fully booked or that it has unexpectedly burnt to the ground. Already he is proving far more reliable than Utkarsh and his shady nephew. The muscles in my neck relax slightly.

‘How much to drive me around for the day?’ I’d checked with my guidebook this morning. Apparently, this was a question I needed to ask before I got into a cab.

‘Maybe two thousand rupees.’ The boy’s head jiggles from side to side.

I climb into the back of the cab and brace myself for another hair-raising ride through Delhi’s streets.

We’ve only been driving for a couple of minutes when the cab comes to a sudden, jerking halt. I peer down the street to where a policeman is busily directing traffic around a couple of battered, washed-out witches’ hats. His uniform is as worn and dusty as the street he is guarding.

‘What’s happening?’ I ask as the driver gets out of his cab.

He raises one hand in the air, signalling me to stay where I am.

I sit perched in my seat, tinsel and assorted talismans swaying in front of me like windscreen wipers.

The smell of old rubbish and sewage makes my stomach see-saw.

The cup of tea and pretzels I had for breakfast swirl about in my guts, threatening to make an encore appearance.

Across the road, my driver is engaged in an energetic conversation with the scruffy-looking policeman. After a final rapid-fire exchange, he returns to the cab looking uneasy.

‘This is a roadblock. We cannot pass. There is a protest in the next street, near where you want to go. But it is alright. Do not worry. I have a plan.’

I assume the plan involves my driver employing his intimate knowledge of the city’s road network to get me to my destination while also avoiding death or maiming by Molotov cocktail. And for the next ten minutes, he does indeed confidently weave in and out of narrow streets and back alleys.

Mindful that there is a violent demonstration going on somewhere in the vicinity, I am far more alert to my surroundings than I was the previous afternoon.

I scan the streets like a hyper vigilant lemur.

I see people squatting on the pavement, cooking.

People sleeping. People getting their hair cut and their faces shaved.

People doing everything that would normally be done inside the walls of a home.

Above us, electrical lines twist and knot like balls of tangled wool.

Incongruously and surely imprudently, these wires also do double duty as clothes lines.

It is all so wonderfully and terrifyingly alien.

Until we stop. Then the scene becomes instantly familiar.

We are parked in front of a store with grubby windows and a broken front door.

It isn’t the location of my near escape last night, but it is close enough for me to experience an almighty rush of déjà vu.

A sign identifies the business as the S UPERIOR T OURIST A GENCY .

If it is anything like Excellent Tourist Services, I’m not budging from my seat, except to run in the opposite direction.

This country is like high intensity interval training for your nerves: I only get a few seconds’ rest before something happens that sends my heart and pulse galloping again.

‘No,’ I growl at the driver, arms crossed against my chest. ‘Absolutely not. I am not walking inside that place.’

The driver gawks at me. Clearly, he isn’t expecting any resistance from the sweat-soaked middle-aged woman sitting in his back seat.

‘But, madam, we cannot go to the dance studio you wish to attend. There is a protest. It is very dangerous. People are fighting in the streets. This excellent travel agent will find you another better dance studio in a safer area. I have no doubt.’

‘No,’ I say again. ‘Either you take me where I want to go or I get out of your cab and walk away right now. And you lose a passenger who is willing to pay you for a whole day.’ I swing one leg out of the cab, ready to stomp off to God only knows where.

‘No. No. Madam. It is alright. Maybe the protest is over now. I will see what I can do. There will be a way.’

The driver starts up the engine and turns his cab back in the direction we came from.

He doesn’t miss a single pothole as we trundle back to the city centre.

It feels deliberate but I don’t care. I am too busy congratulating myself for making a stand.

Pushing back hasn’t just saved me a lot of angst and a fistful of money, it is empowering.

And definitely a skill I need to practise and take back home with me.

It isn’t long before we pull up in front of the Bollywood dance studio.

The area is remarkably free of any rioting.

I instruct the driver to wait for me and I climb the three stairs to the entrance.

A string of bells tinkle as I push open the door and from somewhere out of sight, a light female voice promises to be with me soon.

The studio is no more than an enormous hall with a trestle table and fold-up chairs plonked near the door.

Posters of Bollywood superstars adorn the walls.

I inspect the posters while I wait. The faces that stare back at me are impossibly good-looking and cheerful.

One of the actors looks so much like Utkarsh I do a double take.

But when I move a little closer, I can see the outline of a six pack beneath the actor’s T-shirt.

Utkarsh isn’t fat by any stretch, but he did look a little squishy around the waist, as befitted a man in his fifties.

I think of Jonathan and how much work he puts into maintaining his washboard stomach.

It is a random and unsettling comparison and one that I banish immediately.

A rustle from behind a heavy crimson curtain at the back of the hall saves me from any more wayward imaginings. A young girl appears. She is around Emily’s age and so beautiful she would not have been out of place in any of the movie posters I’ve been studying.

‘Hello, sorry to keep you waiting. How can I help you?’ The girl looks at me curiously. I am not her usual client, but I can’t imagine my mother had been a typical customer either.

‘Hello, my name is Eva Moore. I am looking for my mother. I have a photo.’ I start to rummage through my bag, but the girl reaches out her hand to stop me.

‘You are the daughter of Debbie Reddy!’ she exclaims, her whole body bobbing with delight. ‘Madam Debbie was a most talented student!’

I search the girl’s face for a hint of sarcasm. I can’t find any, but this is an acting school of sorts.

‘Your father was also a promising pupil.’

I must look doubtful, because she pulls a pair of hand drums out from behind the table.

‘Here! He played the tabla. He has magnificent rhythm.’