Television journalist Yasser Usman does not particularly care for Rajesh Khanna, but that didn’t prevent him from writing a fine biography of the Hindi movie star in 2014. Usman is not a big followerof Rekha either, but here is the ABP News employee with a new biography of the previously bold and now reclusive actress. “I have to admit that I am not a huge fan of Rekha’s,” Usman writes in the foreword of Rekha The Untold Story (Juggernaut Books). “I grew up in the 1980s when her career was on the downslide. But I certainly love some of her performances from that decade and have always especially enjoyed her interviews.”
Excerpts from these interviews, which are filled with Bohemian philosophising, confessions of unrequited love and heartbreak, and candid and often catty remarks on co-stars and actual and alleged paramours, swell the pages of Usman’s biography. Despite many efforts, he was not able to meet Rekha or her close associates. He was politely fobbed off by her fiercely loyal secretary Farzana, to whom a later chapter is dedicated. Instead, Usman had to rely on Rekha’s printed voice, which regularly enlivened the pages of the leading film magazines of the 1980s and ’90s such as Stardust, Star N Style and Super. This strategy gives Rekha The Untold Story the same breathlessly gossipy quality of the smouldering actress’s numerous interviews. Passages from Rekha’s sensationalist declarations, including revelations on her first husband Vinod Mehra and her alleged affair with Amitabh Bachchan, remind contemporary readers of why she was a headline grabber, and what we have lost with her retreat into silence since the death of her second husband Mukesh Agarwal in 1990.
It is the perceived loneliness that marked Khanna and Rekha that prompted Usman to write both books, he told Scroll.in in an interview. “The basic theme of both the books is similar – their on-screen personas are difficult to reconcile with their loneliness,” he said. “They are both loved but also very lonely. That’s why I wrote that book and what is why I did this one.”
Although there is plenty on the much-discussed love triangle between Rekha, Bachchan and his wife Jaya Bhaduri, all couched carefully in libel-free language, Usman begins the absorbing biography with a discussion of the relationship that drove Rekha into a monastic existence. Rekha’s sudden wedding with the Delhi businessman Mukesh Agarwal ended in tragedy. A chronic depressive, Agarwal hung himself at his Delhi home on October 2, 1990, seven months into the marriage. (He reportedly used Rekha’s duppata.) The couple had been separated a month before, and the backlash that ensued sealed Rekha’s reputation as a man-eater.
The press lapped up the sensational story of Mukesh’s suicide and featured reports with outrageous headlines like ‘The Black Widow’ (Showtime, November 1990) and ‘The Macabre Truth behind Mukesh’s Suicide’ (Cine Blitz, November 1990). Delhi high society and Bombay’s film industry vociferously condemned Rekha for ‘murdering’ Mukesh Agarwal. His mother’s wail made headlines when she cried, ‘Woh daayan mere bete ko kha gayi. Bhagwan use kabhi maaf nahi karega.’ (That witch devoured my son. God will never forgive her.)
— ‘Rekha The Untold Story’.
The smear campaign set the tone for Usman’s treatment of the Rekha mythos. “It is a tragic story,” he said. “She is an eternal fighter and finally emerged a winner, but Bollywood has been cruel to her.” Rekha might have overcome several adversities to become one of the leading stars by the ’80s, but her reputation always preceded her, which has less to do with her own scandal-seeking ways than with the entertainment industry’s moral hypocrisy, he added.
“Somebody asked me, why are you ruining your name writing about her?” the writer said. “There were strange and sexist statements. I categorically told each and every one I approached that I did not want to ask about her personal life, but I wanted stories from people who had worked with her. I called up 40 to 50 of her co-stars, but many of them refused to talk to me and made up excuses. In contrast, there were so many stories about Rajesh Khanna and his parties and girlfriends. This is nothing but bias against a successful actress. Look at the Kangana Ranaut-Hrithik Roshan incident: it is still happening and nothing has changed.”
The biography traces the transformation of Bhanurekha Ganesan into one of Hindi cinema’s most enigmatic stars. The love child of actress Pushpavalli and Tamil movie star Gemini Ganesan, Rekha started off her career at the age of 14 in small roles in Kannada and Tamil films. Her first Hindi film was Anjana Safar with Biswajeet in 1969, directed by Raja Nawathe and produced by Kuljeet Pal. A kiss between Biswajeet and Rekha, filmed without her knowledge and shot while “unit members were whistling and cheering” for the five minutes that Biswajeet forced himself on the teenage actress, earned her the adjective that is doubled-edged in an industry that is known for its double standards: “bold.”
Usman dispassionately traces Rekha’s many misadventures in Hindi films in the 1970s and ’80s. She displayed poor judgement in her choices and paid little attention to her appearance, costumes, and acting. Actor Navin Nischol, who was making his debut in Sawan Badhon with Rekha in Mohan Sehgal’s Sawan Badhon in 1970, reportedly called her a namoona [character] and kaali-kalooti [dark and ugly]”.
The svelte and oomph-oozing actress with the neatly plucked eyebrows, the right amount of make-up, the perfectly chosen costumes, the cultivated hauteur and the perfectly modulated smoky voice first peeked through in 1976. In Dulal Guha’s Do Anjaane, Rekha appeared with Amitabh Bachchan for the first time, and her role as a two-timing wife earned her rare praise. Film World noted, “From a plump, pelvis-jerking, cleavage-flashing temptress, she has metamorphosed into a sleek, accomplished actress. Gone are most of the inane mannerisms, pouts, wiggles and giggles.”