The Balcony Betrayal

The Mishra house had a smell.

A very specific one.

A mix of freshly fried pakoras, sandalwood incense, old books, and a suspicious hint of Fevicol that no one ever owned up to.

But today, it smelled like war.

Because Timtim Mishra had declared it.

“I waited three years for that room, Maa!” she whined dramatically, arms flung across the dining table as if she had been betrayed by life itself. “Three long years! I even wrote ‘Timtim’s Room’ with glitter pen behind the cupboard last summer!”

“You also wrote ‘Hot Girl Summer’ on the bathroom mirror with lipstick,” her mother pointed out, folding the roti with a smirk. “Nobody took that seriously either.”

Timtim gasped, scandalized. “That was self-love! That was confidence affirmations! Also, that was expensive lipstick, why did you throw it away?”

“Because it made the mirror look like a crime scene.”

Her father chuckled behind his newspaper. “Beta, you barely passed your 12th boards — you think you’ve earned the upstairs room?”

“I passed! That’s the point. You all thought I wouldn’t!” she declared proudly, flouncing into a chair like a queen whose kingdom had betrayed her. Her thin pastel green kurti crinkled beneath her as she folded her legs, her soft cotton salwar slightly loose around her petite frame. Her pastel pink dupatta hung half on her shoulder and half on the floor, like it gave up halfway — much like Timtim during her Physics exam.

A pair of delicate silver anklets jingled every time she moved. Her long black braid had yellow clips shaped like tiny butterflies, her nose carried a tiny stud she begged her mother to let her pierce after 10th, and she had a small mole just below her lower lip — which she was weirdly proud of. She claimed it gave her a "Bollywood villainess charm".

“You got 35 in Maths, Timtim,” her father said, peeking over the newspaper.

“Thirty-six,” she corrected, pointing a dramatic finger at him. “And that one mark makes all the difference between failure and national pride.”

“National shame,” her mother corrected, sipping chai calmly.

Timtim clutched her heart like she had been shot.

“I’m just saying,” she mumbled. “The room upstairs has a balcony. A breeze. Privacy. I was supposed to finally go live my aesthetic P*******t girl life there. Sunsets. Diary writing. Yoga. Maybe a mysterious pigeon I’d train to deliver messages.”

“Your only pigeon friend was that crow you kept feeding biscuit crumbs to during exams,” her brother chirped from his video call on the side. “Even it ghosted you when your results came.”

“You're in London, Abhishek bhaiya!” she shouted at the screen, sticking her tongue out. “Enjoy your overpriced groceries and rainy sadness!”

Abhishek laughed, “Well, enjoy not getting my room. Papa already rented it out to someone.”

And just like that…

Her entire world shattered.

“What?” Timtim froze. “You gave it on rent?! Without even consulting me? I’m your only daughter! You said you’d give me that room once Bhaiya left!”

“Technically,” her mother said, “we said, ‘We’ll see.’ Which in Indian parenting means: Never, unless you become a CA or marry one.”

Timtim stood up in slow-motion, eyes wide, voice trembling like a Bollywood heroine about to walk into the rain.

“Who. Is. The. Tenant.”

Her father looked sheepish.

“He came this morning. Paid six months in advance. Seems like a decent man. Quiet type. Keeps to himself.”

“Oh no no no,” she muttered, pacing like Sherlock Holmes on caffeine. “This can’t be happening. I saw that room in my dreams, Papa. I’ve already planned my curtain aesthetics! And now some bald uncle is going to put a plastic chair in there and ruin everything?”

“Not bald,” her mother said thoughtfully. “Actually… quite young. Tall. Clean shaven. Sharp jaw. Bit intense. Looked like someone who doesn’t smile often. Very serious aura.”

Timtim paused mid-pacing.

“Wait. So he’s young?”

“Yes.”

“Hot?”

Her mother gave her the look. “Timtim.”

“I’m just confirming what kind of tenant I’m chasing out.”

“You’re doing what?”

Timtim smirked, her anklets ringing as she walked to the window like a villain in slow motion.

“Oh, I’m going to make sure he runs away screaming, Maa. No one — and I mean no one — steals my balcony dreams and gets away with it.”

Her father sighed. “Timtim, behave. He’s not here for drama.”

“He’s living above me. My entire existence is drama.”

She turned around, eyes gleaming with mischief.

“Game on, Mister Tenant.”

And as the sun dipped over the city, casting a golden glow on the house and its cracked white walls, somewhere upstairs — a very serious, brooding man placed a sleek black suitcase in the corner of the room.

Aariz Sheikh Pataudi — billionaire in hiding, haunted past stitched into his bones — stood on the balcony, unaware that a storm named Timtim Mishra was about to turn his world upside down.

And maybe… heal it too.

But for now?

She just wanted her room back.