Maryada FF: Vidya-Gaurav (p. 30) - Page 9

Can we have an update today, please?

Chapter 19: The Laws of Attraction

Once they entered their room and he closed the door behind him, he let her down from his arms. Had their dress not been drenched, it would have allowed her sari to not cling to his shirt, which would have allowed them both a more fluid break from each other and from the awkwardness that was bound to ensue otherwise. But the dress did not separate evenly and the awkwardness did ensue after all… Even though there were no romantic feelings they felt towards each other that they could identify thus far, there was something to be said about the pleasant affection that had developed between them. When such a state was combined with the basic laws of attraction – which found mutual affection and wet bodies as a complimentary combination for giving rise to a procreational impulse – the effect was novel. For the man, as he was familiar with such feelings in the past, it was less disconcerting – although it still surprised him when it hit him for this particular woman. The woman, who was unfamiliar with the feeling and thus entirely unsure of what it was, mistook it for discomfort… and in moments of discomfort, she relied on… math.

She stumbled on the water dripping off her just as he put her down and he caught her yet again, noticing that strands of her hair were sticking to his neck and the side of his face. Her mangalsutr had caught on one of his buttons and he thought that it was incredible that it actually happened in real life – he had only seen it in corny movies. He pulled her closer to him so that the chain wouldn't pull. Her neck arched up at the motion to allow him room and he briefly noticed that she swallowed hard. He refused to look at her to make the moment any more awkward, but he needn't have worried because she suddenly said,

"Have you heard of the infinity regress?"

The question caught him off-guard and he looked up at her face as he asked, "Like Star Trek: Voyager?"

She looked at him in confusion and asked, "What is Star Trek?"

He shook his head with a smile and asked, "Is it like the paradox of infinity?"

She shook her head again and he had to pull her even closer to loosen the chain from his button. He could tell that she lost her focus for a moment because he saw her quickly close her eyes. But she recovered and reopened them soon enough to say,

"Have you heard the phrase, "It's turtles all the way down."? She asked again and in that moment, he adored her completely. He had never seen anything like it. He had never realized that when a woman was on the brink of being physically aroused and finding some discomfort with it, she could act in just this way.

"If the proverbial atlas is sitting on the hands of its creator, then who is the creator sitting on?" She asked now, leaning her head back to look at him.

"Hm… I don't know. Who is it?" he asked in return.

She blinked her eyes rapidly now just as he raised her up on her tiptoes to finally pull the chain down and then up.

"A turtle of course…" she remarked when he loosened his hold slightly.

"A turtle?" he asked in surprise, now genuinely interested.

"What is the turtle sitting on?" he asked soon after just as the chain finally came loose.

"Another turtle." She told him with a smile now as he let go of her, having returned to baseline.

"Another turtle?" he asked as he walked backwards from her. "Hmm… and what's that turtle sitting on?"

"Another turtle, of course!" she smiled widely as she adjusted her sari and started walking towards the bathroom.

"Another turtle?" he asked. "And beneath that?"

She paused at the bathroom door and looked back at him, her smile still in place. "It's turtles all the way down."

She laughed just as she walked into the bathroom and shut the door behind her.

"Turtles all the way indeed." He laughed now too as he walked to the dresser to grab a change of clothes.

"Is that math or philosophy?" He called out to her from outside.

She walked out of the bathroom in a few minutes and grabbed a pad and pencil from the table and told him, "It's part of the Munchhausen Trilemma", as she wrote something out rapidly before giving it to him.

As he took it, she said, "Think of the question, "how do you know what is real or true?"

He nodded for her to continue and she elaborated,

"Well, in the infinite regress, the attempt to answer that question would require a proof that requires another proof that requires further proof, and we could keep doing that forever."

"Ah.. it's turtles all the way down." He smiled.

"Now, if you really want to make it mathematical.. then..it's" she gestured to the pad and he read,

"An infinite regress arises in a series of propositions if the truth of proposition P₁ requires the support of proposition P₂, the truth of proposition P₂ requires the support of proposition P₃, ... and the truth of proposition P_n-1 requires the support of proposition P_n and n approaches infinity."

He read it three times before looking back up at her. "I figured out something today."

She tilted her head as she waited for him to answer her.

"At least now I know the answer to "what brought that on?"

She seemed confused for just a moment and then her head straightened as her skin turned a darker hue.

He hadn't been able to resist that one and realized that he had never been his wife blush before.

"I am hoping that at the end of it all, I will be a great mathematician." Just after he said it, he caught the implication of what it really meant and his smile disappeared.

"I think I forgot something downstairs." He told her just as he walked out of the room, to their collective relief.

Chapter 20: The Liar Paradox

She stood there still for a moment after he left. When she was truly sure that he was gone, she brought her hand up to palm her cheek and she could feel the heat from the blood-rush there. She closed her eyes as the events of the last half hour ran in fast-forward through her head. None of it made any sense; why he came and grabbed her from downstairs, or why he dragged her up here, or why he… why he said what he said. What did that mean? She hadn't meant what he thought she meant the last time she said it… What did he think she meant that time? What did he think she meant this time? She massaged her temples as even her loop of what he meant and what she meant stopped making sense…

There was noise outside suddenly and she looked out through the window. A pick-up truck pulled in followed by another and her eyes widened as she saw her mother and several cousins, aunts, and uncles step out. She had not expected them for another few hours and rushed out of the room to welcome them. Just as she got downstairs, she saw her mother-in-law come out into the main room as well and she smiled. During the past two months, she had found out that she liked her mother-in-law immensely. However, she could not make sense of the dynamics between Devyani and Uttara – which was made even more impossible because Uttara had not come back for a month or so after the incident and after that she had only been to the house twice, both for short visits. Things were strained between Devyani and Uttara to say the least, although also on the mend now. Vidya found that she liked Devyani's sister; she was open-natured and gregarious and exuberant and a lot like Gaurav's brother. In fact, Aditya and Uttara seemed to be the best of friends and Vidya had found them fun to be around, as they always put everyone else in a good mood. Where Uttara and Adi were an open book, her mother-in-law was an enigma, although still warm and kind; it was a conundrum of traits that reminded her of her husband. Devyani grabbed her hands in hers with a smile and just as they turned, she bumped into the man who had just occupied her thoughts.

"They are just coming in." He said and she nodded with a smile, rushing along with Devyani to meet her parents.

And thus the earlier interaction was temporarily forgotten until later that night when she happened to hear a curious conversation between the women. She, her mother, Devyani, Uttara, her aunts, and Imli had been in a room downstairs and she had been returning from getting some sweets for everyone from the kitchen when she heard Imli exclaim, "It's only a matter of time." Something about her tone made Vidya pause in her tracks outside the door and she heard her continue even as Devyani tried to hush her.

"I saw the bed-sheets after their suhaag raat." Imli said in a loud whisper.

"What about the sheets?" One of her aunts asked and Vidya hid behind the door panel and leaned in further to hear this part.

"There was blood." Imli whispered again in what Vidya could only assume was the height of dramatics like only Imli could do.

"What?? Of all the preposterous things! If I bled that much the first time, then it would have been a monster rather than a human who took my virginity." She muttered to herself as she turned around and found that he was standing right behind her.

She startled and jerked back but he caught her before she bumped into the open door panel and gave herself away.

Her eyes widened now as she wondered how much he had heard.

"It would have been beastly indeed." He told her with a conspirational smile, thus removing all doubt.

She bit down on her lips without saying anything, finding this too awkward and embarrassing to be humorous.

"Oh come on! Imli has three kids. And if she thinks that all that blood on those sheets were from any process remotely relating to procreation, then I really should have a talk with Jaggi!"

She hadn't realized that she was clutching the plate that she had brought with her too close to herself until its edge dug into her waist and she mushed one of the sweets on its side.

"Vidya…"

She kept adjusting the sweets on the plate.

"Tell me a math puzzle."

"Hmm?" she looked up at him and he could see that she was still unsettled.

He took the plate of sweets from her hand and set it on the window ledge next to them and asked again. "Tell me a math puzzle."

"I can't think of any."

"I will wait here until you tell me one…"

"Oh…" she said, rather robotically.

He waited just as he promised, leaning against the window ledge and stealing a piece of the sweets from the plate for himself.

"One of them is going to come out and find you here." She said then, walking around him to take the plate of sweets.

He held onto the plate, preventing her from taking it.

"Tell me a puzzle. And then I'll let you have it."

She looked up at him and he saw vulnerability in her eyes for the first time. It made him straighten up from his leaning stance.

"Vidya…" he started, but she cut in suddenly as she asked,

"If a man says he is lying, is he telling the truth? Yes or no?"

He sighed in relief as he thought of what she asked. He was getting more practice with these and he realized its inherent fallacy right away, but decided to keep it going anyways… anything to make her relax.

"Yes." He answered.

"So he is lying."

"No, then. He is not telling the truth." He changed his response and smiled at her.

"So he is lying." She smiled too as she picked up her plate and turned.

"So then he is always lying, no matter what." He remarked as she neared the door.

She turned around, "He is always lying, no matter what."

She walked into the room afterwards and shut the door behind her as he turned around to walk away, more disturbed by the puzzle than he realized.

He was always lying, no matter what…

Chapter 21: Killing Me Softly

They had met at a coffee house just by chance.

She had dropped her coffee cup in what he had later found out was uncharacteristic clumsiness and he had turned around to help her. He had gone and told the manager and had then come back with napkins to wipe up the mess on the floor. He would have likely done that for anyone who had had a similar fate; it had been nothing special about her that had drawn his attention or his assistance. Until of course, he noticed that her hands which held the napkins were trembling slightly. He had only looked up to her face then, but she had still not looked at him. She seemed to want to draw no notice to her at all and he had a feeling that maybe he frightened her. And thus he had picked up the wet napkins and had walked away without saying anything else to her. He had doubted that she had even noticed what he looked like, but evidently she had, as she told him later. She had said that it was the first time anyone had offered her help without expecting anything in return. And he had told her that there were many others who would do the same as what he did, that what he had done was not anything special at all. And she had disagreed. She had told him that a truly unselfish human being, one that would do something with no expectation in return, not even a word of gratitude, was nearly impossible to find. She had told him that even the Gods wished gratitude, so what chance did a mere mortal stand? He had thought that she was overly pessimistic, not that he could blame her. And she had wondered how he could be so optimistic when he had a sire who was the most amoral brute this side of the state. He had said nothing in response, as he himself had not known the answer to that…

He is always lying, no matter what…

He now thought that maybe optimism was a manner of lying… in face of all evidence to support otherwise, if you insisted on holding out hope for something that would most likely never be… isn't that lying?

He saw his wife's face in his mind suddenly… the vulnerability that he had seen in her eyes when he had pressed her to remain with him and to indulge him in one of her puzzles…

What the hell had he been doing?

He had relaxed too much into their camaraderie with each other that he had allowed himself to forget that they were not just friends in truth, that there was another tie that bound them that had not exactly come about from free will… he was lying again… he told himself to stop. He was a grown man; no one could get him to do anything that he did not want to do. He should just admit to himself that no matter how infinitesimal, there had been a part of him that had acknowledged that he was dying slowly from loving Salome…

Very interesting paradoxes. 🤓 Enjoyed reading that. On an aside...I love the song "Killing me softly". Was it your intent or am I reading too much in to your words by imagining that Gaurav was flirting with Vidya in Chapter 20? 😆

Originally posted by: darlunia

Very interesting paradoxes. 🤓 Enjoyed reading that. On an aside...I love the song "Killing me softly". Was it your intent or am I reading too much in to your words by imagining that Gaurav was flirting with Vidya in Chapter 20? 😆

Originally posted by: tamushi

waiting for new chapter,please.

you are right, i didn't saw them earlier.

Chapter 22: Inertia

That night when she retired to bed, she did not find him in their room, nor did he come after a half hour had passed. She could not fall asleep; too much had happened during the day. After tossing and turning for a bit, she decided to give her mother's age-old remedy a try – a warm glass of milk. As she walked out of the room and down the stairs to the kitchen, the scene from earlier that day returned to her and she rued the absence of any external distractions to occupy her mind. The image of her husband rushing out to the front garden to grab her hand in his and run back into the house and up the stairs while she was drenching wet was imprinted in her mind's eye with such depth that it would not allow any other thought within ten feet distance. She closed her eyes to escape the thought, except that only improved the quality of the mental image with better precision. She had never realized that a friendship as genuine and nurturing as the one that she was developing with her husband was possible with a husband. And she wondered how much of that was precisely because of the fact that there were no other confusing emotions involved.

But is that really what she wanted out of a marriage? What had she dreamed and hoped for? Those questions all seemed somewhat de-contextual to her now. She had never been someone who had thought honestly about marriage at length. She had assumed that it would happen at some point as her parents decided. She had been a tad bit on the pragmatic side, maybe overly so at times, and had figured out early on that it was statistically impossible for all arranged marriages to result in love. And maybe her lottery analogy from earlier was somewhat pessimistic and not necessarily logically sound either, but such things were a gamble either way. You hoped that your parents would chose right when they made a decision about your mate and would select someone matched in temperament and not overly different in value systems. Even though the fact that her husband was city-born and bred had initially made her think that her parents had grossly miscalculated, she was now starting to realize that maybe they had not so much. Even such approximations, of course, only went so far. Temperamentally, he appeared to be a good match for her and on central human values, she did not think he differed so much from her. But when such things aligned well, there were still others that may not… It was not her parents' fault that her husband appeared to seek a different sort of relationship from her rather than that of a husband and wife.

She had reached the kitchen by then, but in her distraction, she had not heard the whispers from the room until she was at its doorway. The sight that greeted her made her gasp before she could stop herself.

Her father-in-law was attempting to grab one of the new house-maids that they had temporarily hired for the purpose of hosting her own family's visit. She swallowed hard and felt a deep chill travel through all four of her limbs simultaneously as she took a step back and caught herself against the doorway. The maid looked at her, her look of fear transforming into relief as she moved out of Brahmanand's arms and came towards the doorway to slip right past her and run off.

Brahmanand's gaze was on her now and she stood there as still as she could, betraying nothing of what she felt on her face.

"I was… helping her with something." He said then before walking towards the doorway himself. She moved back and out of his way as he moved through the doorway and out of the kitchen.

Vidya waited a breath and walked quickly into the kitchen, leaning against the counter heavily as she placed one hand over her heart to rub it, hoping that the rapid beats there would realize that the danger had passed and slow down.

She heard footsteps behind her suddenly and her heart dropped as she turned around. He covered her mouth and hushed her with a quick shake of his head. It was her husband. She stood still again and followed his gaze towards the stairs where she could see his father still climbing the steps.

When he disappeared from their view, Gaurav turned back to her and removed his hand. For several minutes, he did nothing but stand there and look at her, telling her so many things that were not yet able to form themselves into words…. things that she was only starting to understand about this house.

Finally he spoke, "Don't walk around the house alone at night, Vidya…"

She did not reply, but held his gaze, and he added, "There are no ghosts here, but there are monsters… and they are often out at night."

"What about her?" She asked about the maid, adjusting her voice when she found that it sounded hoarse.

"I will find another house for her tomorrow."

She tried to not give into the tremor that had started in the pit of her belly.

When she looked up at him again, he asked, "Why did you come down here?"

"I wanted a glass of warm milk. I couldn't sleep."

"Does that really help?" he asked curiously.

"I don't know. I was going to try for the first time."

"Could I try it too?" He asked and she looked at him surprised.

There was no humor to be found in his expression this time… he looked more tired than she had ever seen him.

She nodded as she went to the refrigerator to grab the milk and turned the stove on to warm it. He stood next to her in silence and they both watched the flames lick the bottom of the pan as the milk stayed in its stillness, belying any indication that there was a deep heat building underneath.

"Do you know what inertia is?" She finally asked.

"A state of rest?" he looked up at her to answer.

"No. By its true definition, inertia is the natural tendency of any matter to remain in its current state – whether in rest or in motion along a straight path – unless acted upon by an unbalanced force."

He thought of that for a moment and then rephrased what she said, "So, it's the natural proclivity of any matter to resist change…"

She looked at him but did not reply.

"And the only way to affect such a change would be through the introduction of an unbalanced force…" he added.

She looked at him to nod. In that single moment of distraction, the milk boiled over.