Chapter 33: Lucknow

The train to Lucknow takes fourteen hours from Mumbai Central — the Pushpak Express, which departs at 7:35 PM and arrives at 9:40 AM, the arrival time being: approximate, because Indian Railways treats schedules as: suggestions, not commitments, and the suggestion is: we'll get you there when we get you there, and the getting-there is: the point, not the: when.

I book a 2AC berth. Not the 3AC of my younger years (when every rupee was: accounted for, when Harsh's salary dictated: everything, including the class of train travel that his wife was: permitted). 2AC. The berth with curtains. The berth that gives you: privacy, which is: not a luxury but a necessity when you're returning to the city that held you for twenty-seven years and that you're visiting for the first time as: a free woman.

The train departs. Mumbai slides past the window — the suburbs, the shanties, the buildings that thin as the city exhausts itself into: countryside. Maharashtra becomes: flat. Then green. Then the particular landscape of central India — the landscape that is: neither beautiful nor ugly but vast, the vastness that India produces between cities, the vastness that reminds you that India is: not its cities but its spaces, the spaces between.

I don't sleep well. Not because of the berth (the berth is: comfortable, the sheets crisp, the pillow: adequate) but because my mind is: rehearsing. The way it rehearsed on the Deccan Queen to Pune — rehearsing conversations, scenarios, the things I'll feel when I see the Gomti Nagar neighbourhood, the market, the streets that I walked for twenty-seven years in the specific trance of a woman who was: present but not alive.

The train pulls into Lucknow Junction at 10:15 AM — thirty-five minutes late, which by Indian Railways standards is: punctual. The platform is: exactly as I remember. The same tea sellers. The same coolies. The same announcements in Hindi and English, the English being: the English that railway announcers speak, the English that turns every word into: three syllables and every sentence into: music.

The smell. The smell of Lucknow station is: the smell of my past. Not a specific smell — a composite. Chai and diesel and dust and the particular smell of too many people in too small a space, the smell that Indian railway stations produce and that no amount of: modernisation can eliminate because the smell is: the station, the way the sound of the sea is: the sea.

I step onto the platform. I'm carrying: one bag. A weekender. The bag of a woman who is visiting, not returning. The bag that says: I'm here for three days and then I'm going: home. And home is: Mumbai.

An auto-rickshaw to Gomti Nagar. The auto-rickshaw driver is: a young man who plays Hindi film songs on a Bluetooth speaker attached to the dashboard with electrical tape, the attachment being: the engineering solution that Lucknow auto-drivers have perfected, the solution that works until it: doesn't, and the doesn't being: not their problem but the passenger's.

The streets. The streets of Lucti Nagar — I refuse to call it "home" even in my mind, because the recategorisation is: important, the way the name change from Margaret to Madhuri in my own story is: important — the streets are: the same. The same shops. The same intersections. The same chai stall near the university where I used to stop on afternoons when the flat felt: airless.

And: different. The streets are different because I am different. The streets haven't changed — the buildings are the same height, the trees the same species, the road the same cracked asphalt. But I see them differently now because I am: a different pair of eyes. The eyes that used to see these streets as: the boundaries of my world now see them as: scenery. Just scenery. Streets in a city that I used to live in and that I now: visit.

The flat. The old flat. Gomti Nagar, third floor.

I stand across the street. Not inside — I don't have access anymore, and the new owners are: renovating, which means the flat is currently: a construction site, and the construction sounds (drilling, hammering, the particular shout of a foreman telling a worker to move faster) are: the sounds of erasure. My kitchen is being: erased. My bedroom is being: erased. The balcony where I drank chai and watched the Gomti is being: erased.

And I'm: fine.

Not the old "fine" — the theek hai that meant: I'm not fine but I will pretend because pretending is easier than feeling. The new fine. The fine that means: this is completed. This chapter of my life is: complete. The flat belongs to someone else. The kitchen will make someone else's chai. The balcony will hold someone else's gaze. And the woman who stood on that balcony for twenty-seven years is: standing across the street, in a white kurta and kolhapuris, with a weekender bag, and she is: whole.

I visit Hazratganj. The promenade that is: Lucknow's Marine Drive, except not on the sea but on: history. The shops that sell chikan embroidery and the restaurants that serve the food that Lucknow is famous for — the kebabs, the biryani, the nihari, the food that Lucknow produces with the seriousness of a city that believes cooking is: art.

I eat at the chaat stall. The same stall that I used to visit — the stall near the university, the stall whose owner recognises me.

"Madhuri ji? Aap? Bahut din ho gaye." You? It's been a long time.

"Bahut din," I confirm. A long time. A lifetime.

He makes me: pani puri. The pani puri that this stall makes — the puri crisp, the filling sharp with chaat masala and tamarind, the pani (the water, the spiced water) producing the particular explosion of flavour that pani puri produces when pani puri is: right. The explosion that is: sensory, complete, the taste that fills your mouth the way a memory fills your mind — entirely, suddenly, without permission.

I eat pani puri standing at the stall in Hazratganj, and the pani puri tastes like: twenty-seven years. Not the bad years — the years themselves. The time. The accumulation of days that produced: this moment, this woman, this puri in her mouth. The years that were: not wasted but spent, like currency, the currency buying: the person I am now.

I visit the Bara Imambara. The monument that Lucknow is famous for — the labyrinth, the bhulbhulaiya, the maze of corridors that tourists enter and sometimes: can't leave. I went once, with Harsh, in the early years, when the marriage was: new and the city was: new and everything was: possible.

I enter the labyrinth alone. The corridors are: narrow, dark, the walls close enough to touch on both sides. The dark that the labyrinth produces is: not frightening but meditative. The dark that removes: distraction. In the dark, you see: nothing. And in seeing nothing, you see: yourself.

I walk through the bhulbhulaiya. I turn left, right, left, the turns being: instinctive, not planned, the way you navigate a life — not by map but by: feel. The feel that says: this way. Not because this way is correct but because this way is: yours.

I emerge. The exit deposits you on the roof of the Imambara — the roof that overlooks: Lucknow. The entire city spread below. The minarets. The domes. The Gomti River moving slowly toward: somewhere else. The city that held me and that I have now: navigated. The labyrinth that I entered afraid and emerged from: standing on the roof, looking down, seeing the whole thing from: above.

The view is: beautiful. Not the beauty of Marine Drive (that's a different beauty — the beauty of sea and light and openness). This is the beauty of: a city that is ancient and that has seen more than I have and that continues, regardless of who lives in it and who leaves. Lucknow will be here after me. Lucknow was here before me. And the three years between my leaving and this visit have changed: nothing about Lucknow and everything about: me.

I sit on the roof. The stone is warm from the sun — February sun, gentle, not the Mumbai May sun that punishes. The warm stone. The gentle sun. The view of a city that I survived.

I call Chetan.

"I'm on the roof of the Bara Imambara."

"How is it?"

"It's: a labyrinth I navigated and a roof I'm standing on and a city I'm looking down at."

"That's a metaphor."

"That's a: fact. The metaphor is: accidental."

"The best metaphors are."

I sit on the roof and I look at Lucknow and I understand: this city is not my enemy. This city was never my enemy. The enemy was: the theek hai. The smallness. The invisible life. And those things were not Lucknow's fault — they were the fault of a marriage that required me to be: small, and a culture that required me to be: invisible, and a version of myself that required me to be: compliant. Lucknow held those things because I held those things. And now that I've let them go, Lucknow is: just a city. A beautiful city with terrible traffic and the best kebabs in India and a river that moves slowly toward: somewhere else.

I'm moving toward somewhere else too. But I'm not moving: slowly.