Amma

Are soul mates necessarily lovers?
Can they be of same genders?
Do they necessarily need to have something in common? Is having no connection, a connection too?

I feel that we meet our soul mates in different ways. Sometimes in the form of lovers, friends, parents, siblings, even strangers.

I had a soul-mate. My grandmother.


My relationship with my grandmother was extraordinary. Not because I was special, but what 'we' shared was. Ours was not granny-grand daughter relation. We were friends... or, may be sisters.

More so, because we both were undergoing same phase of life. In particular, we spent a toothless time together. I was losing my seven years' old milk teeth and she was getting rid of her seven decade old ones. Hence, we understood each others' 'pain'.
We both spent our 'childhood' together.

Amma.. That's what I used to call her. "Bacchi" (female baby) is what I was for her.


We shared a same room. Before going to bed, I'd wrap her saree (traditional Indian dress) and dance and she would clap, sing and cheer me up. We would try mom's all nail-paints after everyone had slept.

In the evenings, we would buy ice cream from the hawkers. She liked orange flavor but upon my insistence, she would eat cola flavor. Mom and Dad treated us alike.
The best part being she would give me all the free cartoon-stickers for my books and never asked them back.

We used to play together. She would always agree with all my suggestions. I always wondered why she never complained of me winning the race every time.

When I would come back from school, I'd find her sitting in the window waiting for me. After eating prasad that she brought from temple, we would jump together for hot rotis that mom was making. She would ask me pluck the biggest lemon from the garden and squeeze it. Mom would get goose-bumps to watch us make the curry insanely sour.

She often referred to the letter that Dad wrote to her when I was born. She could not imagine me beyond the way he had explained my tiny little fingers and feet that resembled his.

I used to study late till night. She would lie down next to me and keep dozing off. She was my alarm to get up early in the morning. She let me sleep longer deliberately. 

We bought a bike- a machine that Amma never understood. How could a vehicle run on two wheels without balance? She never sat behind Dad. But she did, when I started to drive. She trusted me more than him :)



12 years ago, when I went to see her off, something inside said that it was the last time I was seeing her. I turned back. I saw my cute little childhood friend walking in a white sari- the last glimpse. I never saw her after that.

But then, do soul-mates ever get separated?

P.S. Mom always referred to an Indian proverb "असल से ज़्यादा सूद प्यारा होता है " (Interest amount being dearer than the principal amount)