Page 44 of Eva Reddy’s Trip of a Lifetime

The Wild (Mother) Goose Chase Resumes

Well, I slept on it. And hey presto! I woke up to a whole new career.

Or at least something that could turn into a career down the track.

Of course, the only track I need to take right now is the one that links Satna with Varanasi.

But this is the first positive development in my life in a very long time.

That’s worth a little internal happy dance, right?

I shut down my laptop and empty the contents of my backpack onto the bed.

My old clothes are loose now. Not uncomfortably so—I can still wear them, but I don’t want to.

I’m not the same person I was when I was packing in Sydney.

I also want to travel light. If I’m going to catch up to my parents, I need to pick up the pace.

So, I fold and stack my Sydney clothes into a neat pile for someone at the hotel to discover and recycle.

Although I’m not sure what purpose my trans-seasonal navy pantsuit could possibly serve in this heat.

The train trip is pleasant enough. Back at the hotel, I had picked up a book about life in the Mumbai slums. In the space of six hours, I learn more about the life of India’s urban poor than I had in the previous twelve days wrapped up in my smug tourist cocoon.

I promise myself to approach the next city and its inhabitants with a more open and generous heart.

And as I step off the train at Varanasi station, I’m feeling a lightness of spirit and revelling in my new connection with this strange but exuberant country.

And that’s when I hear my mother calling me from across the tracks.

‘Yoo-hoo! Bunny!’

She is hanging out the window of a train that’s pulling out from the opposite platform.

Her new nose ring catches the light as she flourishes a silk scarf with all the verve of a Formula One track marshal.

My father has his face pressed against the glass beside her.

I’m not sure he recognises me, but he waves all the same.

‘See you in Bodh Gaya!’ my mother shouts above the clamour of commerce and carriages. ‘You are looking wonderful, by the way, sweetheart! India suits you.’

I raise my hand, more in resignation than greeting, and trudge over to the counter to buy what I hope will be my final train ticket.

There’s a fair wait before the next service to Bodh Gaya. I look around the station and decide to spend the next four hours somewhere else. My guidebook is very enthusiastic about the delights of Varanasi.

I locate a rickshaw and negotiate a generous price to be taken to the river.

I’m dropped off at the top of a narrow laneway that I am assured will lead me to the Ganges.

Apparently, in Varanasi, all roads lead to the Ganges.

I make my way down the slick stone path, dodging goats, cows and a medium-sized farm’s worth of dung.

Here and there, vegetables are arranged on the ground for sale.

Old men sit on their haunches outside timeworn shop fronts, chewing betel leaves.

I return their gummy red smiles, and mean it.

The place smells of sandalwood smoke, animal excrement and uncollected rubbish, but for some reason I don’t find it offensive.

It smells like life. I’d happily buy a bottle of the scent and spray it around my home.

Eventually, I make it down to the ghats and find a spot to sit.

I lean against the ancient stone and stretch my legs out in front of me, marvelling at the person I have become.

My body has changed. My fingernails are still short, but they are no longer gnawed.

The muscles in my calves and upper arms have acquired definition and my skin is the colour of an acorn.

Whether the deep brown is the result of melanin or many layers of dust, I can’t say.

But my inner self has grown stronger as well, and more richly coloured.

I feel alive in a way I haven’t done in years.

It is as though India is a magnificent cloak that I have slipped over my shoulders and it has somehow transformed me in its own beautiful, constantly surprising image.

I gaze across the Ganges. The river is every bit as polluted as I had imagined.

It’s as if every rooftop restaurant in the country cleared out its inventory of plastic on the same day.

But that doesn’t detract from the spirituality of the place.

It is teeming with human life, people washing, praying, grieving, playing, meditating.

Varanasi is a place of rebirth and I can feel myself becoming someone completely new.

I pull my laptop out of my backpack and start writing. Because it seems I now have a blog.

MIDDLEMARCH

Hello, women of indeterminate age! My name is Eva Moore. Although I suspect I am now unMoored. So, let’s go with the name that actually feels like it belongs to me, the name I was given a half-century ago.

Let’s start this again.

Hello again, women of indeterminate age!

My name is Eva Reddy. And welcome to my blog ‘Wizened consider what is good in your life and use it to reinvent yourself.

We are all amazing if we let ourselves be.

Promise.