Chapter 5: Isha

# Chapter 5: Isha

## The Girl from Mumbai

The girl from Mumbai ran like someone who had forgotten how to run and was remembering.

I noticed this on the third day — the third day of her being on the track, the third day of her Bata shoes on the laterite, the third day of her lungs protesting and her legs complying and her face wearing the expression that all beginners wore, the expression that was equal parts effort and surprise, the effort being the body's work and the surprise being the body's discovery that the work was harder than the body had assumed.

She was not good. I want to be honest about this because the honesty is the thing that running requires — the honesty of the stopwatch, which does not care about your reasons or your history or the city you came from or the father you lost (I did not know about the father yet — that came later, that came from Rukmini, who knew everything about everyone because Rukmini's social intelligence operated the way my running operated, instinctively, continuously, without apparent effort). The stopwatch said ninety-four seconds for the 400. The stopwatch said 7:08 for the 1,500. The stopwatch said: this girl is not a runner. Not yet.

But. The but was the thing I noticed on the third day.

The third day was the tempo day. The tempo was four laps at sustained pace. I ran my tempo in the first group — four laps in four minutes twelve, the pace that was my tempo pace, the pace at which my body operated in the sustainable zone, the zone between comfortable and fast, the zone that built the engine. I finished and I stood at the track edge and I watched the second group, which included her.

She was in the second group with Rukmini and Sonal and Pranjali. The second group ran slower — the second group's tempo was the second group's tempo, each group calibrated to the group's ability, Mane madam's programming being the programming of a coach who understood that one pace did not fit all and that the forcing of a single pace on fourteen different bodies was not coaching but cruelty.

The girl from Mumbai — Janhavi, her name was Janhavi, I knew her name but I had not used it because using a name was acknowledgment and acknowledgment was a step toward a relationship and I did not want a relationship with a girl who ran 7:08, the 7:08 being the time that placed her outside the circle of competitive relevance and the circle being the boundary that I maintained around my running, the boundary that kept the serious separate from the recreational — Janhavi ran the tempo with her teeth together.

The teeth. The observation that I made on the third day. Other beginners ran with their mouths open — the mouth being the body's emergency oxygen intake, the mouth that opened when the nose's intake was insufficient, the opening being the body's automatic response to oxygen debt. Janhavi did not open her mouth. Janhavi ran with her jaw clenched and her teeth together and her breathing happening through her nose alone, the nasal breathing being the controlled breathing, the deliberate breathing, the breathing of a runner who was choosing to suffer through the nose rather than gasp through the mouth.

The choice was stubborn. The choice was the jidd that Mane madam talked about. The choice was the refusal to let the body's distress become visible, the refusal to show the effort, the refusal that was not denial but discipline — the discipline of a girl who understood, instinctively, that the effort's visibility was the effort's weakness, that the gasping mouth told the competitors I am struggling and that the closed mouth told the competitors nothing.

I had run like that when I was twelve. I had run like that in my first year of training, when Aaji — my grandmother, my father's mother, the woman who had run the Kolhapur half-marathon at age fifty-four and who had trained me on the Panhala hills when I was ten — when Aaji had taught me that the mouth was the last defence, the fortress that you did not surrender until the body had no choice.

Aaji's words: Tond band. Naak chalav. Tond band. Mouth closed. Work the nose. Mouth closed.

Janhavi was running Aaji's way without knowing Aaji's teaching. The running was instinctive — the instinct of a girl whose body understood something about running that the girl's mind had not yet articulated, the understanding being deeper than technique, deeper than coaching, the understanding being the body's own intelligence, the intelligence that some bodies possessed and that other bodies developed and that the possession was the gift and the development was the work.

I watched her for two more days before I decided. The deciding was the thing that I did not do quickly — I did not do anything quickly except run, the running being the domain where speed was the instrument and the deciding being the domain where patience was the instrument, the two domains being separate, the separation being the thing that people did not understand about me, the people who assumed that because I ran fast I also thought fast, the assumption being wrong, the truth being that I ran fast because I thought slowly, the slow thinking being the analysis and the fast running being the execution and the gap between the two being the gap that contained the strategy.

The strategy was: watch her. Watch the girl from Mumbai. Watch the Bata shoes on the laterite. Watch the mouth that stayed closed. Watch the 7:08 become 6:51 in one week. Watch the improvement rate.

The improvement rate was the datum that interested me. Not the absolute time — 6:51 was not competitive, 6:51 was recreational — but the rate. Seventeen seconds per week. The rate was — I calculated on Thursday night, lying in my room, the room that was my room in the house on Bhausingji Road, the house that my father owned and that my mother maintained and that was the house of a fertilizer-shop owner in Kolhapur, the house that was comfortable and unremarkable and that I occupied the way I occupied most spaces, minimally, efficiently, with the awareness that the space was temporary and that the real space was the track — the rate was aggressive.

Seventeen seconds per week was the rate of a beginner's first improvement. The rate would slow. The rate always slowed — Mane madam had explained this with the graph, the hand-drawn graph on the Classmate notebook's page, the graph showing the curve that started steep and flattened, the steep being the beginner's gains and the flat being the advanced runner's plateau, the plateau being the place where each second cost ten times the effort of the previous second.

But the rate's existence was the data point. The rate said: the body responds to training. The rate said: the body has capacity. The rate said: 7:08 is the starting point and the starting point is not the destiny.

I had been 6:22 when I was thirteen. My first 1,500 had been 6:22 — not 7:08, because I had Aaji, because I had the Panhala hills, because I had been running since age ten, because my starting point was three years of training rather than zero years of training. But 6:22 had been my starting point, and my starting point had become 4:42 in three years. The journey from 6:22 to 4:42 was one hundred seconds — one hundred seconds in three years, the three years being the training years, the years of Mane madam's programme and Aaji's hills and the red track and the intervals and the tempo and the hills and the time trials and the ₹14,000 Asics that Baba had bought when the Bata became insufficient.

One hundred seconds in three years. The mathematics said: improvement was possible. The mathematics said: the rate mattered. The mathematics said: a girl who improved seventeen seconds in one week had a body that responded to training, and a body that responded to training was a body that could run.

The question was: how far? How far could the body go? The how far was the question that coaching existed to answer — the question that Mane madam's programme was designed to answer, the programme being the systematic application of training stimulus to the athletic body for the purpose of discovering the body's upper limit, the upper limit being the time that the body produced when the training was optimal and the nutrition was adequate and the recovery was sufficient and the mind was committed.

The mind. The mind was the variable that the stopwatch could not measure. The stopwatch measured the body's output. The mind was the body's input — the input that determined whether the body's capacity was accessed or not, whether the glycogen reserves were depleted or conserved, whether the final 200 metres were run with the kick or walked with the defeat.

Janhavi's mind was the variable that I watched. Not the body — the body was the body, the body was Bata shoes and untrained muscles and six months of detraining. The mind was the thing that closed the mouth and gritted the teeth and ran the sixth interval when the fifth had emptied the reserves. The mind was the thing that I assessed on the third day and that I continued to assess on the fourth and fifth and sixth days and that the assessment concluded: the mind is present.

The mind is present. The sentence that meant: she will improve. The sentence that meant: the 7:08 is not the ceiling but the floor. The sentence that meant: the girl from Mumbai has the raw material that coaching can shape.

The sentence also meant: she is coming. She is coming toward my time. She is coming toward my record. She is coming from 7:08 toward 4:42 and the coming is not a threat because 7:08 is far from 4:42 and the far is the safety and the safety is the distance.

But distance closes. I knew this because I had been the one closing distance — closing the distance between my 6:22 and Mane madam's district record, closing the distance between the girl who ran and the girl who held the record, closing the distance that was the work.

Distance closes. The thought was the thought that competitive athletes held alongside the satisfaction of their records — the thought that the record was temporary, the record being the present tense that the future tense would replace, the replacement being inevitable, the inevitability being the nature of sport, the nature that said: someone will always come. Someone will always come from behind, from below, from the outside. Someone will always come with the body that responds to training and the mind that closes the mouth and the stubbornness that runs the sixth interval.

Was Janhavi that someone? The question was premature. The question was the question of a girl who had held the district record for two years and who had not been challenged in those two years and who was now watching a girl in Bata shoes run 7:08 and seeing, in the 7:08, not the time but the trajectory.

The trajectory. The line that began at 7:08 and that pointed downward and that the pointing was the direction of improvement and the direction of improvement was the direction that led toward 4:42.

I did not share this observation with anyone. I did not share it with Pallavi, whose friendship was the friendship of proximity and shared training rather than shared thinking. I did not share it with Mane madam, whose coaching was the coaching that I trusted with my body but not with my strategy. I did not share it because the observation was mine — the observation of a runner who watched and who calculated and who understood that the watching and the calculating were the competitive advantage, the advantage being the information, the information being the knowledge of who was coming and from where and how fast.

Janhavi was coming. Slowly. In Bata shoes. With a mouth that stayed closed. From Mumbai, which was the city of Marine Drive joggers and building-compound lappers and which was not the city of Kolhapur athletes. From the bottom of the programme's hierarchy. From the starting point.

The starting point. The place from which you started and not the place where you stayed.

I went home on Friday evening. I went home through the Kolhapur evening — the jaswand flowers at the temple, the chappals in the market, the jaggery that was always in the air. I went home to the house on Bhausingji Road and I ate the dinner that Aai had made — the dinner being the standard Gaikwad dinner, the rice and the varan-bhaat and the bhaji and the papad and the pickle, the dinner that was the dinner of a Kolhapur household, the dinner that was nutrition and routine and the specific, unvarying schedule of a household that valued the schedule because the schedule was the structure.

Baba was at the table. Baba — Dilip Gaikwad, the fertilizer-shop owner, the man whose shop on Bhausingji Road sold DAP and urea and potash to the farmers who came from the villages around Kolhapur, the farmers who were Baba's customers and Baba's community and Baba's identity. Baba was the man who had bought the Asics. Baba was the man who drove me to competitions. Baba was the man whose investment in my running was the investment of a father who believed.

"District trials are in January," Baba said. "Two months."

"I know."

"Your 1,500 time from last month?"

"Four forty-two."

"The qualifying time is five-thirty. You're well under."

"The qualifying time is for qualifying. I'm not qualifying. I'm winning."

Baba's face. The face that Baba made when I said things like that — the face that was pride and caution in equal measure, the pride being the father's pride in the daughter's ambition and the caution being the father's awareness that ambition and achievement were not the same, that the saying and the doing were separated by the doing.

"What's your target?" Baba asked.

"Four thirty-five. Mane madam thinks I can go under four thirty-five if the training goes well."

"That would be a state-qualifying time."

"That would be a state-qualifying time."

The repetition was the confirmation — the confirmation that the target was the target and that the target was not casual and that the target was the thing that I would pursue with the specific, singular focus that I brought to the pursuing, the focus that was the strength and the limitation, the strength being the concentration and the limitation being the narrowness, the narrowness that excluded everything that was not the track and the time and the training.

Aai was in the kitchen. Aai — Mangal Gaikwad, the woman whose domain was the kitchen and the household and whose domain was not the track, the separation being the traditional separation that Kolhapur households maintained, the men discussing the sport and the women preparing the food and the discussion and the preparation happening in adjacent rooms, the adjacency being the proximity and the separation.

But Aai was the one who drove me when Baba was at the shop. Aai was the one who washed the kit. Aai was the one who packed the dabba with the specific contents that a distance runner's nutrition required — the bananas and the chikki and the extra roti that were the carbohydrates that the body needed for the training that the body did. Aai's domain was not the track but Aai's support was the track's foundation — the foundation that was invisible and essential, the invisible and essential being the definition of a mother's contribution to an athlete's career.

I finished dinner. I went to my room. I opened the Classmate notebook — my notebook, the notebook that was not Mane madam's training log but my own, the notebook in which I recorded my times and my observations and my calculations, the notebook being the document of my running the way Mane madam's notebook was the document of the programme's running.

I wrote: Janhavi Bhosale. Mumbai. Bata shoes. 7:08 → 6:51. Week 1: -17 seconds. Mouth closed. Nasal breathing. Watch.

Watch. The word that was the strategy. The word that was the runner's word — the runner who watched from ahead, the runner who measured the approach of the runners behind, the runner who understood that the lead was the advantage and the advantage was maintained not by running faster but by knowing who was running faster behind you.

Janhavi Bhosale. The girl from Mumbai. The girl whose mouth stayed closed.

I closed the notebook. I set the alarm — 5:00 AM, the morning run, the Panhala hill, the 3.2 kilometres that I ran every morning alone because the morning run was the individual run, the run that was not the programme's run but mine, the run that was the extra, the additional, the surplus training that separated the district runner from the state runner.

The alarm was set. The notebook was closed. The lights were off. The room was dark — the Kolhapur dark, which was darker than the city dark because Kolhapur switched off earlier than the cities, Kolhapur's bedtime being 10 PM, the 10 PM being the time that the street went quiet and the temple stopped its speakers and the jaggery factories' sweetness was the only thing remaining in the air.

I lay in the dark and I thought about 4:35. I thought about the district meet. I thought about the girl from Mumbai.

The girl from Mumbai was coming. The girl from Mumbai had started and starting was the hardest part and the girl had started and the starting meant the coming and the coming meant — eventually, maybe, possibly — the arriving.

The arriving was far. The arriving was 7:08 minus 4:42, which was two minutes and twenty-six seconds, which was 380 metres on a track, which was nearly a full lap. A full lap. The distance that I would need to lose for her to catch me.

A full lap. The safety margin. The distance that said: she is coming but she is far. The distance that said: you have time. The distance that said: watch.

Watch. The word. The strategy. The dark room. The Kolhapur night.

Sleep came. Sleep came with the specific heaviness of a body that had trained — the heaviness that was not fatigue but earned rest, the rest that the body claimed after the day's work, the claiming being the body's right, the right that the training earned.

Tomorrow: 5:00 AM. Panhala. The hill. The 3.2 kilometres. The morning that began with the climb and that ended with the descent, the climb being the work and the descent being the reward.

Tomorrow: the girl from Mumbai would be on the track again. The Bata shoes on the laterite. The mouth closed. The time dropping.

Tomorrow: watch.