Seductive, alluring, mysterious: Rekha is Indian cinema's true star

No other Hindi film star's personal life has fuelled their professional stature as much as Rekha's. Even a decade after her debut, while she had been a part of many landmark films - Namak Haraam (1973), Dharmatma (1975), Naagin (1976), Ghar (1978) and Muqaddar Ka Sikandar (1978) - to name a few, it was her off-screen events that made bigger news.

Unlike her contemporaries, such as Hema Malini, whose name was good enough to launch projects, Rekha, in spite of being associated with hits with almost all the leading men, was largely seen as an add-on across the 1970s. The fact that the biggest news Rekha ever made after being an immensely popular star was not for a film but when she, unmarried at the time, arrived at Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh's wedding sporting sindoor and a mangalsutra - two things that signify being married in the Indian context - is testimony of how her private life propelled her stardom.

A new biography, Rekha - The Untold Story (Juggernaut), where author Yasser Usman weaves the story of "the scandalous actor" whom many would "berate and love" in the same breath, endeavours to bring forth how there is much more to Rekha than her alleged affair with Amitabh Bachchan. If one thinks of Rekha in terms of a Khubsoorat (1980), an Umrao Jaan (1981), a Kalyug (1981), an Ijaazat (1987), and a Khoon Bhari Maang (1988), there is decidedly much more to the actress than her supposed love affair with her most popular co-star, but the latter continues to be the first thing that comes to mind the moment one imagines Rekha. It's not like stars didn't have affairs with their co-stars before her or ceased to be enamoured with fellow actors after her, yet it's telling how in her case it's almost impossible to separate the two.

Perhaps, it might have to do with Silsila (1981) where, along with Amitabh Bachchan, wife Jaya Bhaduri, and believed-to-be the lover, Rekha, reprised similar roles. Could the film - along with rumoured one-time spouse Vinod Mehra's mother refusing to accept her or the suffering "other" woman image that she had perfected in Muqaddar Ka Sikandar opposite Bachchan - somewhere have transformed Rekha into the perennial other woman?

While any actor's private life is a personal matter, would it be incorrect to think that in Rekha's case, both the press and, to a certain degree, even the actor herself somewhere encouraged this image? Of course, there are few actors like Rekha or Parveen Babi, who could play the doomed lover sans an overwhelming need to be portrayed as a survivor who, at times, lets the guilty one off the hook.

The press had a field day portraying Rekha as a home wrecker or the comfortably numb other woman and this could have also been influenced by Bachchan's blanket ban on the film press.

Rekha was dignified enough to ignore the press when it came to her intimate life. Both onscreen as well as off-screen she continued to live on her terms and, in fact, even ridiculed the ones who questioned her by indulging them. Her decision to sport sindoor created this myth and through her interviews and interaction with people, she carried on building the legend that had begun to surround her.

Perhaps, this limited the way filmmakers viewed her. It is believed that Gulzar had originally envisioned Ijaazat with Rekha in the role that Anuradha Patel eventually played. It was Rekha who told the filmmaker that she would like to play the "wronged" wife instead of the typical other woman.

It's ironical that even though she was a successful leading lady, some of the best roles were a breakaway from the standard definition of the heroine. Around the time she featured in Silsila, Rekha also played the vivacious Manju in Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Khoobsurat, a character inspired by Draupadi in Shyam Benegal's modern retelling of Mahabharat in Kalyug, her sister's surrogate of sorts in Baseraa (1981), a poetess and accomplished dancer in Umrao Jaan, the mother of a young Air Force pilot feared dead behind enemy lines in Vijeta (1982) and the courtesan Vasantasena in Utsav (1984). She balanced the significant roles with run-of-the-mill fare, became the first item girl in Feroz Khan's Jaanbaaz (1987) and even became an accomplished dubbing artist (Rekha dubbed for the Smita Patil in Waaris (1988) and later for both Soundarya and Jayasudha who played the wife and mother of Amitabh Bachchan's character in Sooryavansham (1999).

There is no denying that Rekha is an underrated icon. Moreover, the manner in which the industry ill-treated her, the way she was body-shamed and sexually harassed, is unquestionable. That she transcended everything to become one of the greatest leading actresses in Hindi cinema is also beyond doubt. But to view Rekha from the prism of her rumoured affair with Amitabh Bachchan or the handful of films (Umrao Jaan, Khoobsurat, Kalyug, Ijaazat) would also be a gross injustice.

Two of Rekha's greatest accomplishments often go unnoticed - she was probably the first mainstream actress who didn't need a hero starring opposite her. Some of her best-remembered roles share this attribute - especially Khoobsurat and Khoon Bhari Maang (1988), where she also probably played the first-ever avenging angel in Hindi films.

Similarly, films like Ladaai (1989), Bhrashtachar (1989) or Phool Bane Angaarey (1991), a late solo hit, are barely recalled for their leading men - Mithun Chakraborty in the first two and Rajinikanth in the third.

Rekha's other triumph is that, in many ways, she also set the template for a star's celebrated second innings, which is popularly credited to Amitabh Bachchan post-Mohabbatein (1999). She didn't need to play the Maa or badi didi in order to be a supporting act; look at her in films like Bhrashtachar, Ladaai, Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (1996), Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi (1996), Zubeidaa (2001), Lajja (2001), Bhoot (2002).

More than anyone else, Rekha somewhere embodied all that came with being a star. She could be seductive, alluring, mysterious and homely at the same time. She could also wander through roles without being overbearing and offer something the average viewer could connect with - an imagined real-life longing of unrequited love.

In an utterly male context, she was always seen as the perpetual Radha to the timeless Meera and everything in between, which firmly establishes her as one who chose what she wanted, how she wanted it and carried on without caring a damn.

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