Remember when Mr. Darcy asked Elizabeth, “What do you recommend to encourage affection?” and she instantly replied, “Dancing”?
Now, imagine dancing with your lover on your wedding night. Imagine waltzing away in sheer glory and happiness to Ed Sheeran’s Perfect with your lover who is also your best friend. Imagine a lifetime of adventures together and around the world. It sounds like a dream that is too good to be true, right? Except for this tale as old as time is that of Priyanka and Aadhar.
Priyanka first met a shy but fun-loving Aadhar on a basketball court in Mumbai while on a short visit from Delhi. It began as a competitive game of basketball and ended up as a high-school crush. But their story is miles away from a conventional high school romance where you save seats for each other in the classroom. Priyanka had to fly back to Delhi, where she lived with her family and soon, they would be knee-deep in preparing for their high-school exams.
“This is nearly two decades ago, when the internet was so slow, and our parents would admonish us for wasting time on MSN messenger where we texted each other. It was a whole different era,” Priyanka fondly recollects.
As fate would have it, Priyanka found herself in this remote village of Fursatganj, where Aadhar was already learning to fly at India’s premier flying school - Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Uran Akademi.
“Life in a flying school was different from other colleges. Days began early and were filled with preparation for flight sorties. But the evenings were dull unlike the cities we grew up in. We made the most of this time by getting to know each other. Aadhar would always makes things fun. We’d go for long walks under clear starry night and attempt to make the hostel food more palatable. We even managed to find a basketball court in a small school in the village,” says Priyanka.
Their days of sneaking out from the hostel ended when Aadhar achieved his degree and bagged a job at Air India. Priyanka was elated for him, having witnessed first-hand his hard work, commitment, and passion. At the same time, she was skeptical about the possibility of surviving a long-distance relationship. But you know the universe has carefully laid out its plans for you? Next you know, Priyanka too got a job in Mumbai a year later.
Now, anyone who has lived in Mumbai knows how demanding life can be in the sprawling metropolis.
“Everything from accommodation to travel, is twice as hard in Mumbai as in any other city in India. On the upside, the city prepares you to be more resilient and arduous in the face of constant hustle. They say Mumbai never stops regardless of how hard things get, and it never gives up. There is positive defiance in that city where it faces every challenge head-on. Yet, it manages to steal valuable moments of love, warmth, and celebration,” says Aadhar.
In a fast-paced city and with their varied flight schedules complicating matters, time together was never enough. Priyanka’s stint in Mumbai was also short lived.
“What made long distance easier was making the most of our love for travelling,” says Aadhar.
And travel they did - from road tripping in Iceland to trekking in a cloud forest in Costa Rica. From White water rafting in Leh to scuba diving in Thailand. From listening to techno beats at Sunburn in Goa to screaming our lungs out at a Linking Park concert in Amsterdam.
He says, “We were both very rebellious in school. Priyanka had guts & lots of them. I loved her passion and intensity. She could do anything and everything for the people she loved.”
Eventually the stars aligned & they were both in Mumbai & they decided to live together. And all of this paved way to a magical proposal at a private beach in Australia.
“It was a special moment. We were on a vacation in Australia. One moment we were scuba diving at the Great barrier and the next Aadhar surprised me with a plan to sky dive. So when the next surprise found us siting in a helicopter flying over the Great Barrier Reef, I didn’t realise what Aadhar had on his mind. We landed on a white sand beach aptly named White Haven. The next thing I know, Aadhar was on his knee, presenting this glass container with note - Adventures are forever’’.
And that’s that. The couple got married in an intimate ceremony in the presence of their friends and family and are now on another adventurous ride with their 4-month-old baby girl.
Sharing her nugget of dating advice with Gen Z today, Priyanka says, “friendship - rooted in truly understanding who the other person is - helped us find a way back to each other when life tried to tug us apart.”
For Aadhar, “The secret to happiness in relationship isn’t falling in love rather it’s staying in love. We’ve witnessed everything together from our first solo flights to getting that fourth strip when we became commanders.”
Priyanka and Aadhar's story is part of series of real stories of real people living in Mumbai. If such love stories melt your heart then don't fail to watch Modern Love: Mumbai, only on Amazon Prime Video.
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