I am Meera from Vrindavan, and for five years, I called Lila my soul-sister.
We met at temple festivals and performed together during Janmashtami — the celebration of Lord Krishna’s birth. Lila would be Radha, and I would be a gopi, always just behind her, singing love songs to Krishna under strings of marigolds. Her laughter filled my world like incense on a breezy morning. I believed nothing could separate us.
But life, like the ever-changing Yamuna, turned.
A small misunderstanding about a broken promise — I had forgotten to attend her mother’s prayer ceremony. I tried to explain, to apologize. But Lila’s heart had already shut. We never quarreled loudly. Just... silence. Messages unreplied. Eyes avoiding. I waited for her outside our favorite chai stall for weeks, hoping she’d show up, remember us.
She didn’t.
That winter, Vrindavan felt colder than ever. The sacred flute-songs at the temple sounded distant. I blamed myself. I repeated every whisper I had spoken to her, wondering where I went wrong. Often at night, I sat at my small home altar, in front of Krishna — the dark-skinned god of love and mischief — and wept silently.
One morning, I was sweeping our courtyard when my nephew ran in, his small palms cupped like he held treasure.
"Look, Maasi!" he said. “It landed near me during morning aarti!” He opened his hands — and inside, an old peacock feather tumbled.
Krishna’s feather.
The same kind Lila and I would collect from the temple grounds as little girls, giggling as we called ourselves the Lord’s messengers.
Something cracked open inside me. Not pain. Not joy. Just… release.
Without thinking, I took the feather to my altar. I lit a diya — a small lamp of ghee — and offered the feather to Krishna. My breath slowed. I remembered a verse from the Bhagavad Gita:
Sukh-dukh same kritva labhalabhau jayajayau — “Treat pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat — the same.” (Gita 2.38)
In that moment, I understood. My grief wasn’t just about losing Lila. It was about holding on too tightly to how I thought love should look.
Love — Divine love — doesn’t disappear when people do.
I began spending my mornings in japa — quiet chanting — offering each name of God with one breath of remembering and one of letting go. I found this in the Upanishads too: “When the mind is still, then truth shines." (Katha Upanishad 2.20)
Weeks passed.
One evening, while preparing prasad — sacred food offerings — for the temple, a girl I didn’t know slipped me a note folded around a laddoo. Inside: “Meera, I remember. I’m sorry.”
No name. But I knew.
Still no reunion. Still no promises.
But now, when I sing Krishna’s name, I feel something new: Lila’s laugh tucked somewhere in the chorus of the wind, and the soft warmth of a friendship that once was.
And that’s enough.
Because, as the Ramayana says, “Where there is love, even separation becomes sweet.”
I am Meera from Vrindavan, and for five years, I called Lila my soul-sister.
We met at temple festivals and performed together during Janmashtami — the celebration of Lord Krishna’s birth. Lila would be Radha, and I would be a gopi, always just behind her, singing love songs to Krishna under strings of marigolds. Her laughter filled my world like incense on a breezy morning. I believed nothing could separate us.
But life, like the ever-changing Yamuna, turned.
A small misunderstanding about a broken promise — I had forgotten to attend her mother’s prayer ceremony. I tried to explain, to apologize. But Lila’s heart had already shut. We never quarreled loudly. Just... silence. Messages unreplied. Eyes avoiding. I waited for her outside our favorite chai stall for weeks, hoping she’d show up, remember us.
She didn’t.
That winter, Vrindavan felt colder than ever. The sacred flute-songs at the temple sounded distant. I blamed myself. I repeated every whisper I had spoken to her, wondering where I went wrong. Often at night, I sat at my small home altar, in front of Krishna — the dark-skinned god of love and mischief — and wept silently.
One morning, I was sweeping our courtyard when my nephew ran in, his small palms cupped like he held treasure.
"Look, Maasi!" he said. “It landed near me during morning aarti!” He opened his hands — and inside, an old peacock feather tumbled.
Krishna’s feather.
The same kind Lila and I would collect from the temple grounds as little girls, giggling as we called ourselves the Lord’s messengers.
Something cracked open inside me. Not pain. Not joy. Just… release.
Without thinking, I took the feather to my altar. I lit a diya — a small lamp of ghee — and offered the feather to Krishna. My breath slowed. I remembered a verse from the Bhagavad Gita:
Sukh-dukh same kritva labhalabhau jayajayau — “Treat pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat — the same.” (Gita 2.38)
In that moment, I understood. My grief wasn’t just about losing Lila. It was about holding on too tightly to how I thought love should look.
Love — Divine love — doesn’t disappear when people do.
I began spending my mornings in japa — quiet chanting — offering each name of God with one breath of remembering and one of letting go. I found this in the Upanishads too: “When the mind is still, then truth shines." (Katha Upanishad 2.20)
Weeks passed.
One evening, while preparing prasad — sacred food offerings — for the temple, a girl I didn’t know slipped me a note folded around a laddoo. Inside: “Meera, I remember. I’m sorry.”
No name. But I knew.
Still no reunion. Still no promises.
But now, when I sing Krishna’s name, I feel something new: Lila’s laugh tucked somewhere in the chorus of the wind, and the soft warmth of a friendship that once was.
And that’s enough.
Because, as the Ramayana says, “Where there is love, even separation becomes sweet.”
