Stolen Moments
In their 400-square-foot Andheri apartment, Rohan and Priya Mehta navigated marriage like synchronized swimmers in a crowded pool. Six years of love, now buried under spreadsheets, Zoom calls, and the unrelenting buzz of Mumbai's traffic outside their window. Their one-bedroom flat, stacked in a high-rise with paper-thin walls, offered little refuge from the world.
Rohan, a fintech project manager, and Priya, a social media strategist, worked remotely - a modern convenience that had become a curse. Their dining table doubled as a shared office, laptops glaring at each other like rivals. Mornings began with caffeine and cacophony: overlapping meetings, the pressure cooker whistling from the kitchen, and the neighbor's toddler wailing through the ceiling. Privacy was a myth.
"*Meeting in five!*" Priya mouthed one Wednesday, gesturing to Rohan's noise-canceling headphones. He nodded, stealing a glance at her tousled hair, the way her saree blouse clung to her shoulders. Romance these days was a stolen samosa between calls.
The first time they tried to reclaim intimacy, Rohan's boss had called mid-kiss. Priya's giggles dissolved into frustration. "This is impossible," she'd sighed. But necessity bred invention.
They discovered loopholes.
During lunch breaks, they'd mute their laptops and tiptoe to the balcony, squeezing onto the weathered swing. The scent of monsoon rain on concrete mingled with Priya's jasmine perfume as they shared hurried embraces, their laughter muffled by the honking chaos below. Once, a sudden cloudburst drenched them; Priya's mascara ran, but Rohan's kiss tasted like rebellion.
Another afternoon, a power outage gifted them 17 unplugged minutes. They fumbled through the dimness, colliding with furniture, until Priya pulled Rohan into the windowless bathroom. The darkness was kind, their whispers bouncing off tiles. "We're *insane*," Rohan chuckled against her neck, but her fingers in his hair said *alive*.
Their boldest scheme unfolded during Priya's "wellness Wednesday" - a recurring calendar block her team knew not to disturb. Rohan scheduled a fake client call. For 45 minutes, they transformed their bedroom into a sanctuary: AC blasting to drown noise, phones silenced under pillows. When Priya's anklet clinked against the bedpost, Rohan froze. "The Patels next door will hear," he whispered.
"Let them," she grinned, tugging his tie.
But the city always reclaimed them. A deliveryman buzzed incessantly, Priya's Slack notifications erupted, and reality rushed back in. Yet, in those fragments - stolen between deadlines and domesticity - they found a language older than wifi. A raised eyebrow over coffee, toes brushing beneath the worktable, Rohan's palm warming the small of Priya's back as they microwaved leftovers.
One sweaty July evening, monsoon winds howling, the building's internet failed entirely. They stared at their frozen screens, then each other. Priya stood first, kicking her chair back. "*Dance with me*," she demanded, pulling Rohan up. There was no music, just the drumming rain and their bare feet on cool tiles. When she kissed him, it was slow, deliberate - a rediscovery.
Later, tangled in damp sheets, Rohan traced the curve of her cheek. "We should've done this at 3 PM. Better bandwidth then."
Priya swatted him, laughing. "Shut up. This was perfect."
Outside, horns blared, pressure cookers screamed, and the city thrummed on. But in their tiny fortress of stolen time, the Mehtas had learned to bend chaos into love.