'Love Inspired Rekha to Get a Makeover'

BDC News

Tuesday 13 September 2016
In conversation with Yasser Usman, the author of Rekha: The Untold Story

In the reams that have been written about Rekha the star, the precociousness of a 14-year-old Bhanu Rekha and the coyness of bride Rekha Agarwal tend to get eclipsed. Making them his protagonists, author Yasser Usman sets out to tell the story of the woman underneath the star. Carefully scanning through archives and interacting with some of her closest friends in the industry, Usman has pieced together Rekha: The Untold Story, a book that, among other things, holds a mirror to the industry’s fear of feisty women.
A lot has already been written about Rekha. What led you to embark on this project?
I was interviewing a producer who had worked with both Rekha and Rajesh Khanna and he suggested that I do a book on her. I began speaking to a lot of industry veterans, who are in their 70s now and have worked with Rekha; they spoke about her in the most sexist of ways. In fact, a scriptwriter actually told me, “You will ruin your name if you write about Rekha.” My focus is not just on Rekha the star but also the 14-year-old Bhanu Rekha, a Tamil girl who was forced to be part of an industry whose language she did not know. She did not know Hindi, so she would write her script in Roman and cram it up. That’s where the legend of her photographic memory comes from. Her father never accepted her mother and she remained the proverbial ‘other woman’. This was something Rekha always detested and yet it is ironic that she is widely perceived as the other woman. Her earlier interviews show her as someone who was comfortable with her sexuality and used it to further her career. Other actresses did it too but she was singled out because of her past. She loved giving bold interviews like the one where she said it was sheer fluke that she did not get into trouble despite her relationships or the one where she made fun of self-righteous conservatism of the industry. She was frank, something Bollywood couldn’t stomach. When she was dating Kiran Kumar, everyone told his father Jeevan, ”Aapka beta kiske saath ghoom raha hai!” By the time  Do Anjaane happened, she was undergoing a major transformation. If you refer to the interviews she gave back in the ’70s, she actually talks about how she fell in love then and that’s what inspired her to get a makeover.
How did this relationship impact Rekha?
Interestingly, Rekha and Jaya Bachchan were neighbours and lived in the same building. In fact, Jaya would advise her on matters of heart. However, Rekha once stated that when Jaya married Amitabh, she never invited her for the wedding; she was bitter about this. The turning point was Do Anjaane. If you see her interviews before ’90s, she actually makes some shocking revelations where she is clearly hinting at a relationship with Amitabh. Amitabh, on the other hand, has always denied that Rekha was anything more than a co-star. She recalls an incident where there was a trial show for Muqaddar Ka Sikander and she was sitting somewhere. The moment Amitabh and her love scenes came, tears began to roll down her eyes. She has also spoken about her bitterness when she was stopped from meeting Amitabh after he met with an accident on the sets of Coolie. 
Wasn’t the relationship with industrialist Mukesh Agarwal more of a rebound?
You could say that. I think in Rekha’s life, Mukesh Agarwal was the only person who actually proposed marriage. In fact, when they got married, Mukesh’s bhabhi actually said, ‘Hamare ghar hoor aayi hai.’ This is the kind of validation Rekha always wanted in her life. Look at the story itself. Mukesh came to Bombay, met Rekha, proposed marriage. They went to so many temples and finally got married at 10.30 at night in a temple in Juhu. She was now Rekha Agarwal. She thought she would go to Delhi, leave work or act in fewer films. This was the one time when normalcy came into her life!
Reading the book one gets a sense that as independent as she was, yet there was a strong desire to fall back on her relationships. Isn’t this a bit of a contradiction?
You know her jija told me something very interesting: the press writes about her relationships but not about the moments when she actually took charge. For instance, she became mother to a family. She would do B-grade films only to earn money and help her family while her mother was on a bed rest. Today pay disparity is a topic actresses are being very vocal about. But during Rekha’s time even top actresses weren’t paid much. She signed movies in bulk so that she could sustain her family. She got her sisters married, ensured that brothers found their foothold, took care of her ailing mother. She did all this but somewhere she also wanted to be taken care of. In Mukesh, she saw hope because she hadn’t had a good experience when she was in relationship with the men from the industry. She thought perhaps moving out of it would bring her happiness. But look how it turned out.

How has her friendship with Farzana evolved over the years?
Farzana’s father was a production controller. When she initially entered the industry, she wanted to be a director. She even assisted some of them. Soon after she realised it wasn’t her cup of tea. Farzana then got in touch with Rekha and became her secretary-cum-manager in the mid-80s. So it has been a long association of 30 years. There was a time when Farzana’s mother was sick, so she would attend to her in the morning and then rush to Rekha; she has literally given her life for Rekha. Today, it is impossible to reach out to Rekha without going through Farzana. In the famous Simi Garewal interview, Simi asks if she hasn’t read any books how does she know so much and Rekha says Farazana reads them out to me. Somebody I interviewed narrated this beautiful incident where Rekha went for a dinner and refused to dine until Farzana was eating with her. In the 70s and 80s, the norm in the industry was that all the top stars would eat together. Jerry Pinto has observed in my book that these are abused women who were kids when they entered the industry; that’s why they formed friendships with women who were similarly treated. But I would say Rekha was lucky to find a friend like that. Look at Rajesh Khanna, he was absolutely lonely. Imagine there was this man called Prashant who was Rajesh Khanna’s manfriday when he was a superstar. When bad times hit the actor, Prashant left the job and years later he joined Salman Khan’s office. Prashant was in tears when he told me that so lonely was Rajesh Khanna that he called him once at midnight and said, ‘Prashant, you were my closest confidante and now you don’t even come to meet me. Ab main itna akela ho gaya hoon.’ I was in tears while writing these chapters in my previous book.
As you mentioned, Bollywood actresses are speaking up against gender bias and the struggles they’ve had to go through. Why do you think Rekha has still maintained her silence?
In the media, every tragedy of hers was blown out of proportion. After Mukesh’s death, she was branded a ‘murderer’, a ‘man-eater’, a ‘nymphomaniac’. This was the single biggest tragedy of her life and she couldn’t take the accusations that were coming her way and hence went into her shell. Secondly, once you are 50 or 60, you are in no mood to give those fiery interviews. You don’t want to clarify. Hers might be a lonely life, but at least she is at peace now.
This is also not an easy subject to write on since it involves opening skeletons locked in one’s closet. Now that the book is out, how do you think Bollywood itself will receive it?
Bollywood generally is not very open to the idea of being written about. Imagine 10 years down the line if someone were to write a biography of Priyanka Chopra, what would s/he write? That Priyanka was wearing this, she was looking like a diva when she promoted a certain film? Stars these days do not open up unless they are promoting something. In the film journalism of the ’70s and ’80s, stars used to talk openly to journalists; these were heartwarming conversations and journalists could hope to reach out to the stars directly. Now you have to go through five different middlemen who will ask you to submit your questions in advance and give you a list of things you cannot ask a star. Ten years down the line, it will be extremely difficult to write about these celebrities. Celebrities also tend to be more guarded these days because anything is written in the name of salacious gossip. This book is a pure journalistic account and every source is in public domain. I don’t know how Bollywood will react. There are some filmmakers and film stars who have promoted it on Twitter. I’m just waiting to see if someone else reacts to it.
Rekha:The Untold Story has been published by Juggernaut Books and is available in bookstores and on the Juggernaut app.