She loved... ** Recommended

Disclaimer: Imaginary. And original like all the posts here.
I kinda liked this post a lot.

Shrikant was her childhood playmate. As a little girl, she would want to be in his team and never play 'against' him in any sport. She would experience a sense of security when he was around. A gratification of different sort filled her senses when he held her hand and walked her down the road when she had hurt her knee one day.

They ended up studying in the same college. She would giggle each time she saw Dharmendra in a movie. And it was not because she liked Dharmendra but because everyone in her college said Shrikant looked like Dharmendra. Dharmendra was his favourite actor and Shrikant was certainly as smart as him, she thought.

Her father one day decided to discontinue her college education. Abruptly, she found herself at home learning cooking and embroidery. Within six months, she was carrying the baby of the man she was married to.

She smiled under her lips when she got to know that Shrikant had graduated with a first class. Wow, she thought. He was a commerce graduate now. She could almost visualize him decked up in a neatly-ironed shirt on his way to an office somewhere in South Bombay. He would be a big man now!

She attended Shrikant's marriage with her husband who was all praises for her before everyone present. Shrikant had flashed the same Dharmendra-esque smile when her husband told him what a caring mother she was.

A couple of months later, Shrikant's sister who was her friend was getting married. They met again at the wedding. Shrikant now had a bald patch of hair. She giggled again, this time at the way he looked now.

Years flew by. Her children got married and settled abroad. Her husband was diagnosed with a life-threatening disease. The way she had all her life, she nursed him with all her dedication in his last days.

Now she lives alone. She offers prayers for her children and for her dead husband. She is living a calm life now.

But somewhere inside her lies dormant the green of her youth. She remembers him in all the forms of his that she has seen - from the protective little boy to the balding married man, each time she sees Dharmendra on TV.

She is not the only one. There are so many women of her generation who as girls must have loved someone. Who must have never had the opportunity to express their love. And who were so innocent that they accepted every duty that was imposed on them and played every role that was expected of them. She did too.

And she cared for this boy of her childhood. Without a name to what she felt , without an expectation of any sort and more so, even without her knowledge, she loved.