Page 39 of Eva Reddy’s Trip of a Lifetime

A Crash Landing

It is a white-knuckle ride to Satna, thanks to our driver’s penchant for exaggerated fishtailing swerves and sudden braking.

For more than three hours, I try not to look at the road ahead and instead focus on the chicken riding beside me.

It doesn’t look any more comfortable than I am.

I’m certainly the more frightened of the two of us.

The chicken seems to know that even if it does cross this particular road, it probably won’t survive the day.

I still have hope. And a generous serve of bloody-minded determination.

Because one thing is for sure: despite my many and mounting life disasters, I am not giving up. Jonathan and Utkarsh be damned. I have two outlaw geriatrics to chase down. I might not have a man but I do have a purpose. As crazy as that purpose might be.

The bus stops in the middle of an enormous open quadrangle filled with every imaginable method of conveyance.

There are rickshaws, taxis, bicycles, trucks, carts and buses—a few dozen of them, parked haphazardly wherever there is space.

The entire area is scarred with potholes, making me wonder why India’s self-proclaimed cement capital doesn’t divert some of its bounty to level out what is clearly Satna’s road transportation hub.

I rescue my backpack from the pile of luggage dumped in the dirt and set off for what appears to be downtown, careful not to twist an ankle in the process.

The city doesn’t disappoint. Mostly because my expectations are so very low.

It is a flat, dusty place, crowded with people and a quite extraordinary number of motorcycles.

In some spots, they ride six and more abreast. This makes a dash across the street an even riskier proposition than the bus trip that got me here.

Then there’s the noise. Every motorcycle has a faulty muffler and a very loud horn that is in constant use.

Even Utkarsh’s singing is easier on the ear than this grating orchestra of traffic.

Satna’s greatest—and so far, only—redeeming feature is the splendid array of roadside food stalls and the tempting smells that curl around them.

I collect an impressive variety of snacks, including enough paratha to keep me going for a week, and book into a clean, mid-range hotel in the centre of town.

The room isn’t flash. There’s a side table, desk and office chair that have clearly only just met and do not have a great deal in common.

The bedspread is an alarming bright pink embroidered chenille.

And if that doesn’t give me nightmares, the decorative poster of a particularly malevolent looking Hindu god most certainly will.

I arrange my provisions on the table and dive in with my fingers.

The food is so good, I don’t think about Utkarsh or about how wonderful it felt to physically connect with someone after so long.

Or about the feel of his flesh against mine.

Or about—Well, I’m trying not to give it too much thought.

I’m also not even slightly angry anymore.

Disappointed, yes. Hurt, certainly. But it’s hard to maintain the rage when your body is still sparking with pleasant memories from the night before.

Despite Utkarsh, despite the hideous bedspread, despite the angry gaze of that many mean-headed Hindu god, despite every miserable detail of my fast unravelling middle-aged life, I fall into a heavy and seemingly dreamless sleep.

And I’m still upbeat when I wake up the next morning.

That could be because of my new, mature mindset.

More likely, it’s because my mother still hasn’t made contact.

I’m worried and I need to hear from her, but I’m also enjoying the reprieve from the madness.

Whatever the reason, I am feeling mentally stronger than I have in years.

When I discovered how horribly Utkarsh had betrayed me, I spoke up and defended myself, I didn’t slink away humiliated as I had back in Sydney.

I said what I needed to say and then marched to the bus station.

And I looked so purposeful on my journey that not a single tout dared to intercept me.

When I bought my ticket, I did it without dithering.

I was a confident, self-possessed, strong woman.

And that’s who I intend to be from this point on.

So today, I am not going to wait around at Debbie Reddy’s whim, I am going to step out into the world and experience everything Satna has to offer.

Which doesn’t seem to be a great deal, to be fair.

But I am going to make the most of my accidental holiday location.

I swallow the last of my tea, sling my day pack over one shoulder and head downstairs.

I stride through the hotel foyer like an avenging goddess. I cannot be stopped. I am Eva Reddy. I am on a mission. Under my breath I hum ‘I Am Woman’. Badly.

The receptionist jumps up from behind the counter as I forge past. ‘No! Stop, madam! You do not wish to go out there.’

But I’m not listening, not anymore. I know better than to rely on the advice and dire warnings of anyone employed in the tourist industry. I am smart. I am fearless. I am invincible.

I am so bloody clueless.

With the receptionist’s pleas fading behind me, I march straight into a multicoloured hell.

Thousands upon thousands of people are bouncing up and down and throwing coloured powder at each other.

The air is thick with the stuff. Red. Green.

Yellow. It sticks to my clothes and mixes with the sweat pouring from my skin.

I’m as helpless as I was back at the airport in Delhi, but at least then the crowd was surging toward an exit.

Here, there is no end point. No final destination. Just a sea of bobbing heads.

Water bombs explode all around me, apparently launched from nearby rooftops.

There are drums and cymbals and bells and people shouting and singing and dancing.

It’s like some gigantic subcontinental mosh pit.

The sound is so loud, my whole body is thrumming.

And there is no escape. There is not an inch of me that is not pressed up against the clothing or skin of another body.

It is suffocating and terrifying. I try to employ the basics of surf lifesaving: when you’re caught in a strong current, don’t fight it; swim parallel and wait for an opportunity to make it to safety.

It takes about ten minutes but at last I see a clearing about three layers of people to my right.

I wipe at my face and inadvertently rake coloured powder into my eyes.

I am blinded. I twirl around a half-dozen times, arms outstretched, searching for something solid that isn’t a body.

Those around me obviously interpret my desperate flapping as an expression of joy and encourage me with another volley of coloured powder directly into my face. I stumble forward.

Then—

Crunch.

There’s the screech of tyres, the fumes of petrol and then the soft thud of landing in something squishy.

Then nothing.

From the journals and miscellaneous paperwork of Eva Reddy (Age 32)

August 19th, 2004

Note to self—do not ever let Jonathan talk you into going to another class reunion. I already see the people from school that I want to see. Which is a total of two: Rachael and Jonathan.

Also, why celebrate the fifteen-year anniversary of anything? It’s such a nothing number.

I do get why Jonathan was so desperate to go, though.

He’s one of the golden boys of Sydney corporate law.

He may as well walk into the reunion with ‘I’m a success’ tattooed across his forehead.

And of course, nothing compares to the dopamine rush of reliving your school days when you were a star athlete and also very, very popular.

Who wouldn’t want to soak up all that adulation?

But next time, leave me out of it.

I wasn’t especially popular (or unpopular) at school, more popular adjacent.

And I certainly wasn’t an athlete, despite my mother’s many attempts to interest me in field hockey.

But I was expected to do something big with my life.

The school newspaper; the accelerated English program; school dux—it all pointed to a golden future.

I even wrote in my yearbook that I planned to be rich and famous. I’m neither. I’m a middle-class nobody.

And a massive underachiever.

So, I definitely was not looking forward to the reunion and all those ‘So what are you doing with yourself nowadays?’ conversations.

I had weeks to come up with a half-decent response, but nothing presented itself.

In the end, I went into the evening without an answer prepared. Just a mounting feeling of dread.

The reunion was held in the function area of the pub we used to sneak into underage. And most of the people who were there hadn’t snuck further than a few suburbs away in the years since.

I’m one of them. If I was a runner, I could go from home to school to the pub and back again in less than thirty minutes. So much for my mother’s constant cries of ‘Live life large!’ My world was the size of a postage stamp. Although a postage stamp has some interesting travel options.

We walked into the function room and were immediately assailed with shouts of ‘Jonno!’ from a table near the bar—the jocks had found one another and were downing beers and reminiscing about their glory days.

They were huddled together, just as they had been at our high school barbecues, pumped up with testosterone and self-importance.

But you could see the march of the years: balding heads; beer-belly paunches; ill-fitting clothing.

Jonathan joined them and they all started chanting the old football war cry. A few women glanced in their direction. That was one thing that hadn’t changed over the years. The women still watched on from a respectful distance.