Chapter 41: Eighteen Months

Eighteen months. The number that sounds like: nothing. Eighteen months is: the time it takes to get a master's degree, to grow a baby and recover from growing a baby, to learn intermediate Spanish. Eighteen months is: a blip. A breath. A rounding error in the accounting of: a life.

Except that my eighteen months have been: everything.

I sit on my balcony — the balcony that faces the sea-sliver, the sliver that changes every hour and that I've learned to read the way fishermen read water: the pale morning sliver that says "today will be gentle," the dark afternoon sliver that says "monsoon is coming," the orange evening sliver that says "another day survived." I sit and I think about: the woman who sat on the other balcony. The Gomti Nagar balcony. The Lucknow balcony where I drank chai and watched a river that moved slowly toward: somewhere else.

That woman is: gone. Not dead — transformed. The way a caterpillar doesn't die when it becomes a butterfly (the caterpillar actually: dissolves, completely, inside the cocoon — the cells breaking down into: nothing, into biological soup, and then: reassembling into something with wings. The dissolution being: total. The reassembly being: miraculous. The metaphor being: exact).

I dissolved. In January of last year. I arrived in Mumbai dissolved — my cells broken down, my identity liquefied, the woman I'd been for twenty-seven years turned into: biological soup. And then: the reassembly. Cell by cell. Friendship by friendship. Tagline by tagline. The reassembly that produced: this woman. On this balcony. In this city. With this life.

The inventory:

I am Madhuri Srivastava. Age: fifty-one (the birthday happened last month — Vandana threw a party at the gym, naturally, the party including a cake from the Bandra bakery that said "51 and Kadak" because Vandana treats cake inscriptions as: advertising copy). I am a senior copywriter at Spark & Co. I am a Gold Abby winner. I am a resident of Bandra, Mumbai. I am a member of Seaside Fitness. I am the mother of Karan, who lives in Pune and who cooks paneer butter masala and who calls every Sunday and who is: my greatest achievement, the achievement that required: not my talent but my presence, and the presence that I gave even when I was: invisible to everyone else.

I am the partner of Chetan Deshpande. Writer. Widower. Man who pours chai into the sea. Man who is writing a novel that contains: a version of me. Man who said "I love you" in the rain on Carter Road and who meant it and who means it and who will mean it for: however long meaning lasts.

I am the friend of: Vandana, who dresses for every occasion and who is learning that a husband's return is not: a conclusion but a beginning. Jaya, who published a book and who is writing another and who is: the sharpest person I know and the kindest, the combination being: rare. Sunaina, who carries Vikram's loss in her spine and who turns the loss into: teaching. Aditi, who said no and meant yes and who is: twenty-nine and free. Jai, who showed his mother's hands to the world and who is: flying to New York in September. Nikhil, who stepped back with grace and who remains: present, the presence of a man who values friendship over: ambition. Cheryl, who is in Connecticut with a baby named Meera and a Hawaiian shirt and a weekly FaceTime that begins with "what's the vada pav count?" and ends with: "I miss you idiots."

I am: enough. Not the "enough" of self-help books (those books annoy me; they tell you you're enough without explaining: what enough means). The "enough" that means: I don't need to add anything to myself. I don't need another award. Another relationship. Another proof. I am: the sum of my parts, and the parts are: sufficient. The sufficiency that comes not from achievement but from: recognition. The recognition of: what I already am.

At the gym. My last Zumba class before the monsoon break (Preeti ma'am takes July off because "even warriors need: rest, and rest is: Goa, and Goa is: mandatory"). The class is: full. Twenty women in Studio B, the studio that has heard every beat of every Bollywood song that Preeti ma'am has programmed into her speakers and that has absorbed: the sweat of transformation.

Preeti ma'am plays the last song. Not a Bollywood song — a qawwali. The qawwali that she plays once a year, at the end of the last class before the break, the qawwali being: her tradition, the tradition that says: this is not just fitness, this is: devotion.

"Chaap Tilak." Amir Khusrau. The qawwali that has been sung for seven hundred years and that contains: the surrender that exercise is, the surrender of the body to: movement, the surrender that is not weakness but: trust.

We dance. Not the choreographed steps of Zumba — the free movement that the qawwali demands. The movement that is: personal. Each woman in Studio B moving in her own way, the way that her body chooses, the way that her body has learned in: however many classes she's attended, however many years she's lived, however many surrenders she's performed.

I dance. In the mirror, I see: myself. The woman with short hair and silver jhumkas and the body that has been doing Zumba for eighteen months and that is: different. Not thinner (I've never been interested in: thinner; thinner is: a number, and I'm done with numbers). Different. The body that moves with: confidence. The body that knows its own: rhythms. The body that trusts: itself.

The qawwali ends. The last note. The note that hangs in the air the way incense hangs in a temple — not disappearing but: dissolving slowly, the dissolution that is: not ending but transformation.

"See you in August," Preeti ma'am says. "Don't lose your fitness. Don't lose your: selves."

Evening. Carter Road. The walk that I do alone on Wednesdays — the walk that is: mine, the solitude that I guard because solitude is: not loneliness but self-consultation, the consultation that a person needs when a person is: responsible for her own life and the responsibility requires: regular check-ins with the person doing the: living.

The sea is: calm. The pre-monsoon calm — the last days of stillness before the four months of: fury. The sea knowing what's coming and being: peaceful about it. The peace of: preparation.

I walk and I think about: what comes next. Not the plan — I don't plan years anymore, I told Chetan at midnight on New Year's. I plan: mornings. But the direction. The direction that a life has when a life has: momentum. And my life has momentum now — the momentum of: agency. The momentum that Sunaina talked about: "Agency is the only thing the universe gives us that the truck can't take."

What comes next is: more. More mornings. More chai. More Marine Drive walks with Chetan, where Meera's cup sits on the railing and the sea takes the cold chai and the sea says: I'll hold this. More Zumba with Preeti ma'am. More yoga with Sunaina. More conversations at the juice bar that begin with: nothing and end with: everything. More words at Spark & Co — the words that make invisible women: visible. More Karan. More paneer butter masala. More "Ma" on the phone on Sundays.

More rain. The monsoon is: coming. I can feel it — the particular heaviness in the air, the weight that precedes the water, the weight that Mumbai carries for three weeks before the release. The weight that I carried for twenty-seven years before my: release.

The release is: complete. The release happened. And what followed the release was: this. This life. This city. This self.

I stand at the Carter Road railing. The sea-view. The full view — not the sliver from my apartment but the panoramic Carter Road view that says: this is where you live. This is your: sea. This is your Mumbai.

"Theek hai," I say. To the sea. To the city. To myself.

But the "theek hai" is: different now. The "theek hai" that used to mean "I'm fine when I'm not fine" now means: "I'm fine. Actually fine. Fine in the way that fine was always supposed to mean but that my life didn't allow it to: mean." The reclamation of the phrase. The reclamation of: everything.

Theek hai.

I'm: theek.