Stolen Moments

The notification sound of another Teams meeting pierced through the quiet of their Gurgaon apartment at 9:47 PM. Shagun looked up from her laptop, where she was reviewing quarterly projections for her consulting firm, to see Karan frantically typing on his phone while simultaneously taking notes for what appeared to be his fourth international call of the day.

"Sorry, can you repeat that? The connection seems..." Karan's voice trailed off as he noticed Shagun's gaze. He held up one finger, the universal sign for 'just one more minute', a gesture that had become as routine as their morning coffee.

Kabhie waqt se waqt chura kar baitho zara, she thought, remembering the lines her grandmother used to recite. When did we last steal time from time itself?

It was 10:30 PM when Karan finally closed his laptop. Shagun had already moved to the kitchen, mechanically heating up their dinner, leftover rajma that their domestic help had prepared three days ago.

"Singapore client?" she asked without looking up.

"Tokyo. The new automotive project. Launch is next month." He rubbed his eyes; the blue light fatigue was evident in the way he blinked slowly. "You?"

"McKinsey wants the retail analysis by Friday. The one that was supposed to be due next week." She handed him a plate, their fingers barely brushing in the exchange.

They ate in comfortable silence, both scrolling through their phones. Shagun responded to WhatsApp messages from her team in Bangalore. Karan checked his calendar for tomorrow, back-to-back meetings from 7 AM to 8 PM. This was their dinner conversation now: the soft clicking of keyboards, the occasional "Hmm" of acknowledgement, and the background hum of the air purifier working overtime in Delhi's October smog.

Waqt bacha kar ek arsa sa hua tumse guftgu hue. When did we last save time to talk?

"Remember when we used to talk about having kids?" Shagun said suddenly, surprising herself.

Karan looked up, a spoonful of rajma halfway to his mouth. "We still talk about it."

"No, we mention it. Like a task on a to-do list. 'Must discuss kids. Priority: medium. She set down her phone. "When did we last talk about it? About what we want? About timing? About fears?"

He put down his spoon. The apartment felt too quiet suddenly, without the buffer of their devices.

"Your promotion came through," he said instead. "Senior Principal. That's huge, Shagun."

"And your startup pitch got accepted. Series A funding." She smiled, but it felt like stretching unused muscles. "We're doing well."

"Very well."

"So why does it feel like we're roommates who happen to share a bed?"

The question hung in the air like Delhi's pollution, visible, suffocating, impossible to ignore.

Karan reached across the small dining table they'd bought from Urban Ladder during their first year of marriage, when they thought they'd have dinner parties and host friends regularly. His hand covered hers. "We see each other every day."

"Milte to rojana hain kai martaba," she quoted softly. "We meet several times daily, but..."

"But it's been an age since we truly met each other," he completed.

Three Years Earlier

Their courtship had been a WhatsApp romance interrupted by conference calls. Late-night conversations that stretched until 2 AM, sharing dreams over video calls when he was in Mumbai and she was in Delhi. They'd planned their wedding between his quarterly reviews and her client presentations, stealing moments to taste wedding cakes during lunch breaks, choosing lehengas over shared screens during her business trips.

"We're perfect for each other," Karan had said during one of their 3 AM calls. "We both understand the demands. We both want the same things: success, independence, and a partnership of equals."

"No adjustments, no compromises," Shagun had agreed. "We'll support each other's ambitions."

They'd been so proud of their modern approach. No in-laws' interference, no questions about her cooking skills or his family background. They were two successful professionals choosing each other. Love in the time of LinkedIn.

Their honeymoon had been five days in Goa, carefully scheduled between his product launch and her client onboarding. They'd worked mornings, explored afternoons, and made love with the kind of passion that comes from stolen time. Even then, even during those perfect five days, their phones had buzzed with "urgent" emails.

"This is our last work call of the trip," she'd promised on day three, answering a call from her director while wearing a bikini.

"Mine too," he'd said, simultaneously typing responses to his team's Slack messages.

They'd laughed about it then. "Power couple," they'd joked.

Present Day, Saturday Morning

"Let's go somewhere today," Karan said over breakfast. He was reading the Economic Times on his iPad, but he'd said the words out loud, which was progress.

"Where?" Shagun asked, already calculating in her head. The McKinsey report needed two more sections, and she'd promised her team a feedback session by Monday.

"I don't know. Somewhere without WiFi."

She laughed. "Nowhere in Delhi has WiFi anymore."

"The mountains?"

"That's a full day. I have the presentation"

"Shagun." He set down his iPad. "Let's just... go. Today. Right now."

There was something in his voice, a crack in the professional facade they'd both perfected. She looked at him, really looked. When had those lines appeared around his eyes? When had his shoulders started staying hunched even when he wasn't at his desk?

"The report"

"Will be there tomorrow."

She closed her laptop. "Okay."

They drove to Neemrana in his Honda City, windows down despite the pollution, old Bollywood songs playing on Spotify. Shagun had forgotten how Karan sang off-key to every Kishore Kumar song. He'd forgotten how she did a little dance with her hands when she was truly relaxed.

"Tell me something I don't know about you," she said as they passed through Dharuhera.

"I've been thinking about quitting," he said immediately, as if he'd been waiting for permission to voice it.

"Quitting the startup?"

"All of it. The startup, the constant pitches, the 70-hour weeks." He glanced at her. "I've been thinking about teaching. Maybe at one of the IIMs."

Shagun felt something unfamiliar in her chest. When had he started thinking about teaching? "Since when?"

"Since I realised I haven't read a book that wasn't business-related in three years. Since I realised I can't remember the last time I felt excited about anything other than closing a deal."

They drove in silence for a while. The confession sat between them like a passenger they'd forgotten to introduce.

"I've been having panic attacks," Shagun said finally.

"What?"

"Small ones. In the bathroom at work, mostly. Sometimes during client calls. I just... can't breathe suddenly."

He reached over and took her hand. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"When? During our fifteen-minute dinner conversations? In the five minutes between your shower and sleep?" She wasn't angry, just tired. "We've become so efficient at everything, including our marriage."

At Neemrana Fort Palace

They walked through the 15th-century fort palace, now converted into a heritage hotel. Ancient sandstone walls rose around them, built by people who measured time in seasons, not quarterly targets.

"Look," Shagun pointed to an old fresco on the palace wall. "They had time to create beauty just for the sake of beauty."

"Must be nice," Karan said. "No KPIs for the court painter."

They found a quiet terrace overlooking the Aravalli hills. The afternoon sun was beginning its descent, and for the first time in months, neither of them reached for their phones to capture the moment.

"I love you," Karan said suddenly.

"I know."

"No, I mean... I love you. Present tense. Not past tense, not the memory of loving you, not the idea of you. You, right now, sitting here complaining about your panic attacks and my off-key singing."

Shagun turned to face him fully. "I love you too. Even though you leave your coffee mug on the kitchen counter every morning."

"Even though you set seventeen alarms and snooze them all."

"Even though we've forgotten how to talk to each other."

"We're talking now."

"Stolen time," she said softly.

They spent the rest of the afternoon like tourists in their own lives. They shared a beer on the terrace. Shagun told him about her dream of maybe freelancing someday, working with smaller businesses, and having more control over her time. Karan talked about his idea for an ed-tech startup focused on rural education, something meaningful instead of the current fintech venture that felt soul-crushingly empty.

"What if we're doing this all wrong?" Shagun asked as the sun set over the hills.

"The marriage?"

"The life. What if success doesn't have to mean this pace? What if we're climbing a ladder leaning against the wrong wall?"

Karan pulled out his phone to check the time, then consciously put it away. "It's scary to think about changing everything."

"It's scarier to think about not changing anything."

Sunday Evening, Back in Gurgaon

Reality reasserted itself the moment they walked into their apartment. Shagun's laptop chimed with seventeen new emails. Karan's phone showed forty-three WhatsApp messages from his co-founder.

But something was different. They looked at each other before reaching for their devices.

"Rule," Shagun said suddenly. "No devices during dinner. And we eat together, even if it's at 11 PM."

"Rule," Karan agreed. "Sunday mornings are for us. No calls, no emails, no exceptions."

"Rule: We tell each other one real thing every day. Not about work. About us."

"Rule: We decide together about kids, about career changes, about everything that matters. Not in passing mentions, but actual conversations."

They shook hands solemnly, then laughed at their formality.

Six Months Later

"The Singapore client is calling in ten minutes," Karan said, but he was holding Shagun's hand across their new dinner table, a larger one they'd bought after deciding to use their dining room.

"Tell them you'll call back in an hour," she said. "I made rajma from scratch."

"From scratch? You?"

"YouTube University. I'm a chef now."

He laughed and kissed her forehead. "One hour. Then we'll both take our calls."

"Deal."

They weren't perfect. Shagun still gets panic attacks sometimes, though less frequently. Karan still worked too many hours, though he'd started saying no to weekend calls. They still struggled with the balance, still had weeks where they barely saw each other despite living in the same apartment.

But they'd learned to steal time. Fifteen minutes of morning coffee without phones. A weekly walk around theirneighbourhoodd. Late-night conversations about everything except work.

"I think I want to try for a baby next year," Shagun said over their homemade rajma.

"I think I want that too," Karan replied. "And I want to quit the startup by the end of this year."

"Scary."

"Terrifying."

"But also exciting?"

"Very."

They ate the rest of their dinner talking about baby names and teaching opportunities, about freelancing possibilities and a slower pace of life. Outside, Gurgaon hummed with its relentless energy, traffic, construction, and the constant buzz of a city that never stops working.

But inside their small apartment, time moved differently. They'd learned to carve out moments from the rushing river of their ambitions, to create islands of intimacy in the ocean of their professional obligations.

Kabhie waqt se waqt chura kar baitho zara, Shagun thought as she watched Karan's animated explanation of his rural education idea. Sometimes, you have to steal time from time itself.

And finally, after three years of marriage and countless meals eaten while working, they were learning how to be present for each other again. How to meet each other truly, not just physically share space.

The corporate world would always demand more. But they'd discovered something more valuable than efficiency: the art of being inefficient together, of wasting time in the most beautiful way possible.

Their phones buzzed simultaneously with evening calls. They looked at each other, smiled, and answered their devices. But now they knew, this was just work. Their real life was in the stolen moments between the calls, in the conversations that couldn't be scheduled, in the love that refused to be optimised.

Tomorrow would bring new deadlines, new pressures, and new reasons to postpone their real life. But tonight, they'd stolen enough time to remember who they were when they weren't being successful.

And that was enough.

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