Chapter 32: The Flat in Lucknow

Harsh sells the Lucknow flat in February.

He tells me by phone — not a scheduled call, not a formal notification, just a Tuesday afternoon call that arrives while I'm at Spark & Co reviewing copy for a skincare brand whose target audience is "women who feel invisible" (my speciality now; I've become the agency's expert on: invisible women becoming visible, which is either a niche or a: calling).

"I sold the flat," Harsh says.

The flat. The Gomti Nagar flat. The flat where I lived for twenty-seven years — the flat that contained: a kitchen where I made chai every morning, a bedroom where I slept beside a man who forgot how to love me, a living room where I watched television I didn't choose, a balcony where I drank chai alone and watched the Gomti River move slowly toward: somewhere else. The flat that was: my prison and my home, simultaneously, the way prisons become homes when you've been in them long enough that the walls feel: familiar instead of confining.

"To whom?" I ask. The question that doesn't matter but that the mind produces when the mind is processing a loss it didn't expect to: feel.

"A young couple. Newly married. He's an IAS officer. She's a doctor at KGMU. They're — they're excited about the flat. They want to: renovate."

Renovate. The word that means: erase. Tear down the walls I knew and build new ones. Replace the kitchen where I stood for decades with a kitchen where someone else will stand. The renovation of a life into: another life.

"That's good," I say. And it is good. The flat should be: lived in by people who want it. The flat should be renovated and filled with new furniture and new curtains and a new couple's new arguments about which side of the bed is whose. The flat should be: someone else's story now.

"I wanted you to know," Harsh says. "Before the paperwork finishes. I wanted you to: know."

"Thank you."

"Your share — the settlement amount — it'll be in your account by March."

"I know. The lawyer sent the details."

Silence. The silence of two people who shared a flat for twenty-seven years and who are now discussing its sale with the bureaucratic politeness of: former occupants. Not former lovers. Not former partners. Former occupants. People who lived in the same space and who are now living in: different spaces, the different spaces being: the point.

"Harsh."

"Hmm?"

"Did you keep anything? From the flat?"

"I kept the pressure cooker."

I laugh. The laugh that divorce produces — not bitter, not joyful, but: absurd. Harsh keeping the pressure cooker. The pressure cooker that I used every day for dal, for rajma, for the meals that held the marriage together because the marriage itself couldn't: hold.

"The pressure cooker."

"It works perfectly. Eleven years old and it still whistles on time. Some things are: reliable."

"Unlike marriages."

"Unlike marriages. Yes."

He laughs too. The laugh that I haven't heard from Harsh in — I don't know how long. The laugh that requires: distance from the thing being laughed at. You can't laugh at a marriage while you're in it. You can only laugh at it when you're: outside, looking back, seeing the absurdity that was invisible from: within.

"Take care, Madhuri."

"Take care, Harsh."

I tell Chetan about the flat. Saturday morning. Marine Drive. The walk that has become: ours, though we walk at seven, not five-thirty, because five-thirty is still: Meera's time, and the boundary is: respected.

"How do you feel?" Chetan asks. The question that a writer asks because a writer knows that the answer to "how do you feel?" is never: simple, that the answer contains: layers, and that the layers are: the story.

"I feel — relieved. And sad. And relieved that I'm sad, because the sadness means it: mattered. The flat mattered. The years mattered. And if they didn't matter — if I felt nothing — that would be: worse. That would mean the twenty-seven years were: wasted. But the sadness says: they weren't wasted. They were: spent. Like currency. You spend money and the money is gone but what you bought with it: remains."

"What did you buy?"

"Karan. A knowledge of myself that I couldn't have gotten any other way. The understanding that 'theek hai' is not: a philosophy but a: symptom. And the ability to write 'Pehli se zyada kadak' — because you can't write about the second cup if you haven't: survived the first."

"That's — that's a novel, Madhuri. What you just said. That's: a novel."

"Don't steal my life for your fiction."

"Too late. I told you. You've been in every novel since Marine Drive."

We walk. Marine Drive in the early morning — the light that photographers call golden hour and that I call: the hour when everything looks: forgivable. The buildings forgiven for their decay. The sea forgiven for its pollution. The promenade forgiven for its cracks. Everything bathed in: light that says: I see your imperfections and I choose to illuminate them: gently.

"Can I ask you something?" I say.

"You can ask me anything."

"When Meera died — when you lost the flat, the life, the everything — did you feel: free?"

He doesn't flinch. Chetan doesn't flinch at questions the way he doesn't flinch at: anything. The unflinching of a man who has processed his grief to the point where grief is: no longer a wound but a: landscape. A place he's been. A place he knows.

"I felt: weightless," he says. "Not free — weightless. There's a difference. Free implies: choice. Weightless implies: untethered. And untethered is: not freedom. Untethered is: floating without gravity. Floating without: direction."

"And now?"

"Now I have: gravity again. The writing is gravity. Marine Drive is gravity. You are: gravity."

"I'm your gravity."

"Don't say it like that — it sounds like a bad Bollywood film. I mean: you give me weight. The weight of: someone to walk with. Someone whose story matters to me. The weight that untethered people need to come back to: ground."

"Chetan Deshpande. Writer of award-winning literary fiction. And terrible Bollywood dialogue."

"The worst. My editor would kill me."

We stop at the Irani café. Bun maska. Irani chai. The ritual that is: ours. The ritual that carries Meera's ghost and my past and Chetan's words and the entire weight of two lives that have found each other at: fifty, which is: late and also: exactly on time.

"I want to go back to Lucknow," I say.

"To the flat?"

"Not to the flat. The flat is: someone else's now. To the city. To see it — as a visitor. Not as a: prisoner. I want to walk through Hazratganj and eat at the chaat stall near the university and see the Gomti River and the Bara Imambara and all the places that were: the scenery of my captivity, and I want to see them as: scenery. Just scenery. Not: walls."

"When?"

"Next month. Before the heat starts."

"Do you want me to come?"

"No. This one I need to do: alone. The way I came to Mumbai: alone. Some journeys require solitude. The solitude that allows you to: hear yourself. Not the self that talks to Chetan or the self that writes taglines or the self that does yoga. The self that walks through Lucknow and remembers being: invisible, and who is now: visible, and who needs to see the place where the invisibility happened to confirm: it's over."

"That's brave."

"That's necessary."