MAY 05, 2003

Temptress. Enchantress. Empress. Rekha

She is back, along with her carefully cultivated mystique. Long after
her contemporaries have retired, the "director's actress" soldiers
on.

By Anupama Chopra

Rekha is a Rorschach test. What you see depends on who you are.
Bollywood insiders speak about an ageing, fading actress who can no
longer differentiate between the mask and the face. Tabloids paint
her as an erotic icon, still longing for her great unfulfilled love,
Amitabh Bachchan-every few months there are whispers of clandestine
meetings in London. Journalists talk in pitying tones of a reclusive
woman twisted bitter by lecherous men and loneliness.

But the Rekha I meet is none of these. She wears a black knit top
over jeans, and solitaires. Her hair, which she herself cropped to
shoulder length recently, is held back by a silver clip. Her face,
without make-up or discernible lines, is stunning. She is chatty and
curious, excited and energetic, cheerful and almost illegally
optimistic. She laughs uproariously and talks for hours about films
and art, love and rasmalai. If Rekha really is a gnarled, forlorn,
delusional has-been, either it is such a well-kept secret that even
she doesn't know or she is the best actor alive.

I am open to any and every kind of role. I always have been.
Actually, I've only said no to people I didn't trust. Otherwise I've
done every role that was offered to me. Every role. You know what
that means ... so little has been offered to me ...(breaks into
laughter).

Rekha is a Hindi movie miracle. Long after her contemporaries have
retired into marriage and motherhood, she soldiers on. Not in vapid
bhabhi roles but as characters that shape the narrative. In Ram Gopal
Varma's upcoming Bhoot, a horror film set in an apartment in Mumbai,
she plays a psychic. Varma says he could not think of anyone
else: "She has a tremendous natural dignity. One look and the
audience takes her seriously." In Rakesh Roshan's sci-fi Koi Mil
Gaya, Rekha is a middle-class mother who struggles to bring up a
mentally deficient child with love.

Directors wax eloquent about her. Mira Nair, who cast her in
Kamasutra, likens her to a "Jamini Roy painting". "Like Marylin
Monroe is shorthand for sex, Rekha is shorthand for charisma. She is
a movie star in any language." Mahesh Manjrekar says he has grown up
adoring her and will "beg at her feet" for her to work with him.
Sanjay Leela Bhansali labels her the "last of the great
stars". "Rekha is a question mark, an exclamation mark, a comma,
never a full stop. To know her is to be seduced by life." Shyam
Benegal calls her "a director's actress".

Thirty-three years of facing the camera in 200-odd films hasn't jaded
Rekha. She still approaches each role as if it were her first. So she
is wearing ill-fitting blouses in Koi Mil Gaya to make sure she looks
adequately ordinary ("For me that is truly a challenge"). "No matter
how many times we rehearse a dance step," says choreographer Saroj
Khan, "she will start from scratch and is nervous." Varma says she
is "more professional than any actor I've worked with". "I've seen so
many actors lose track as soon as they see the S of success but she
still has the same interest and concentration."

So why does she have only two films? Because Bollywood still hasn't
figured out what to with an incandescent 48-year-old single woman. It
hasn't been able to find a place for her. So while Bachchan, at 60,
is the busiest star in the business, Rekha waits for a filmmaker who
can reinterpret her. Meanwhile, she is also making plans to turn
director herself. Her film will be "romantic, intense, meaningful,
intellectually stimulating, different, unique, thought-provoking,
visually stunning, unknown and yet totally familiar". In other words,
it will be Rekha.

I am in love with someone I haven't met. It is a perfect image in my
mind. I have had much more than love, such intense feelings
overflowing and coming out of each hair and cuticle in my body. If it
hasn't happened in real, it has been so strong in my imagination.

Q. Is this person a fantasy?
A. He is totally oblivious to what I feel for him. He has always been
and will always be. He has no clue to what I feel for him. It is true
and this is a huge confession.

Q. So why don't you just tell him?
A. No man or woman can know how the other person feels. There is no
rule, no book, you do the best you can and not expect anything in
return.

Rekha's love life has been of national interest for three decades.
Her marriages, affairs and rumours of affairs have consumed enough
pages to fill a library. And Rekha has continued to stoke stories by
seemingly carelessly dropped hints and dramatic looks in public
places. But despite endless speculations and an unauthorised
biography, the truth remains elusive. What is known is Rekha has had
two failed marriages. She was on the verge of divorce when her second
husband Mukesh Agarwal committed suicide. The months that followed
were harrowing-she was labelled a murderer and posters of her film
Sheshnag were defaced. But Rekha says she emerged stronger from the
crisis: "I grew up then to become the eternal child that I am today.
I have never questioned life again. I am absolutely, unconditionally
open to anything."


Her life has been more far-fetched than her films. She is the love
child of legendary actor Gemini Ganeshan and Pushpavalli. At 14, she
took to acting to support her 16-member family. She was fat, dark and
could hardly speak Hindi. Yet her first film, Sawan Bhadon, was a
resounding hit. The slings of fortune haven't made her a cynic. She
has retained her sanity by retreating into her castle, a bungalow by
the Arabian Sea named after her mother. Nobody is welcome here. Neetu
Kapoor has been a close friend for two decades-Rekha makes it a point
to visit her every year on her birthday-but she has never been
invited home. And Rekha rarely ventures out. "She has become a
recluse," says Neetu, "Rishi has even fired her for not coming out
more but she knows her mind."

Only a handful of people know the password to the magic kingdom of
Pushpavalli-among them her secretary Farzana, her hairdresser and her
immediate family. Rekha artfully controls all relationships, so even
Varma, thought to be her friend, does not have her home phone number.
She has chosen to live outside the seductive whirl of the film
industry but she has no regrets or fears about growing old alone. She
has put the idea of having a child on hold "for now". "First I have
to find the prop, the father," she says with a throaty laugh. Though
she doesn't believe in marriage ("No man-made institution lasts
forever") she won't have a child out of wedlock because she knows
what it is like to grow up without a father. She isn't sure what
happiness is but she is content to live with her fantasy man and her
maker. God, who she calls "the world's greatest artist", is Rekha's
constant companion.

I am open to the cosmos, not just people but every leaf, every
molecule and every blade of grass. I am renewing my energy and
reinventing myself. My soul is being soothed and nurtured everyday. I
am looking for only one thing: knowledge. My calling in life is to be
not just a provider or wife or mother. My calling is to be a true
fellow human being. I am not alone. I am every woman and, may I add,
I am every man too.

In her self-imposed confinement, Rekha has bloomed. For her, life is
a ritual, to be lived with grace, style and always romance. As
Bhansali says, "It is the way I imagine Cleopatra or Meena Kumari in
Pakeezah must have lived." So even writing a letter must be imbued
with elegance-she makes her own stationery. She also designs her own
costumes, sketches, writes poetry and spends time gardening. She
wakes up at 5 a.m. and exercises for an hour and a half-yoga,
lightweights and treadmill. Though sweets are a passion-on Farzana's
birthday, she relished 12 rasmalais-she eats mostly salads. Water,
barley water, coconut water are constants. She is also, she says, the
queen of camouflage.

But perhaps the real reason why she has not wilted with age is the
commandments she has written for herself: "Never expect, always give
the benefit of doubt, give better than your best, be open to
everything, don't expect the worst but if it happens, embrace it, do
your karma by giving but never let the person know, never crush your
creativity, don't live life with blinkers on and learn at least one
new thing every day."

Like Rekha, these evolve everyday. And she remains, a work in
progress.