Line of beauty: An ode to Rekha on her 70th birthday

She has been dissed and discussed. Diva, ivory tower queen, sexy superstar... well, these are the kinder epithets that have come her way. Rekha Ganeshan has outlived them all…You could say the ingredients of her life had the makings of a classic Greek tragedy; all of which has been chronicled in the purple pages of film glossies and unauthorised biographies.

Which is perhaps just as well, because people need to know what goes into the making of a great actor. Great actor she is. But she never got the opportunities, say like Shabana Azmi did. Perhaps, it was her stardom, her larger-than-life persona or just her alleged mercurial ways. Or maybe she just didn’t chase roles like other actors did.

Do Anjaane

The Rekha I remember is in largely unremembered films. Like in Dulal Guha’s Do Anjaane (1976). A turgid story about an aspiring and an over ambitious actress, whose career is cut short by her marriage to a man of little means. She silently schemes his death with his best friend. In true Bharatiya nari tradition Rekha gets her comeuppance when she realises that true love lies in her hearth. Her first film where she probably realised her true potential, Rekha walks the tightrope between aggrieved and aggressive. She’s terrific, glimpses of which we had also in the overreaching housewife of Aap Ki Khatir (1977).

Aap Ki Khatir

Her total recall as an actor to reckon with came once again with Ghar (1978). Directed by Maneck Chatterjee, who passed away during the making of film, the film was completed by Gulzar. Ghar is a Gulzar vehicle right from its dialogue to song sequences. As a housewife dealing with the aftereffects of rape, Rekha wrenches out every bit of your sympathy. She’s first rate and you can see it in the close-ups in the Phir wohi raat song and her final outburst with her empathetic husband Vinod Mehra.

Ever after Ghar, she flounced around in several commercial chartbusters until Prakash Mehra’s Muqaddar Ka Sikandar (1978) happened. A last-minute addition to the script, an adaptation of Devdas, Rekha’s Zohrabai, a modern Chandramukhi, is the entire spice rack in this eminently watchable masala caper. Her long lines of dialogue in her death scene are masterful as they are moving. Here was classic Rekha. Give her an opportunity and she would seize the day.

This same decisiveness she showed in Shyam Benegal’s adaptation of Mahabharata – Kalyug (1981). Despite a miniscule role, she knocks it off the park in the scene where the income tax guys are going through her intimate belongings, a metaphor of Draupadi’s vastraharan episode. That she’s a changeling actor is best seen when she switches from cold and calculated in her dealings with husband Raj Babbar and her warm almost bordering on the sensual relationship with brother-in-law Anant Nag.

Ghar

The early ’80s were her annus mirabilis. After specialising as ‘the other woman’ or the courtesan, opportunity came in the form of Yash Chopra’s Silsila (1981). Perhaps too dangerously close to real life, people looked for drama. Despite being saddled with an unsympathetic role, Rekha makes you look beyond her glossy lips and China silks - observe her close-ups in the Neela aasman song, her long silences in her scenes with husband Sanjeev Kumar, her breakdown with Amitabh Bachchan in Lodhi Gardens or just her unshed tears in the confrontation with Jaya Bachchan.

In sharp contrast to the angst of Silsila was her free spiritedness which showed in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Khoobsurat (1980)! As the goofy Manju, Rekha was in top form. Be it in her dance in the Piya baawri classical number or her final scene at the railway station... the metamorphosis of the tender gosling into a swan was well underway.

She also nailed it in Ramesh Talwar’s Baseraa (1981). From a spirited young girl, to a married woman, to a stepmother, to a wife in denial, it was a Rekha show all the way. The scenes where she attempts to hide the truth of her marriage from her older sister played by Raakhee, are terrific.

Also first rate was her performance in the annoyingly maudlin Jeevan Dhaara (1982). As the sole provider to a pile-on family, Rekha pulls in a measured performance besides drawing in all the sympathy. Piquantly, her great performances came from the much-derided Southside melodramas like Judaai, Ek Hi Bhool, Maang Bharo Sajna, Asha Jyoti and Prem Tapasya through the ’80s. Besides Jeetendra and her crispy kanjeevaram sarees, the common factor was also Rekha’s incredible acts in these slushy affairs. Sample her scene with Reena Roy in Prem Tapasya where the latter offers her money to stay away from her beau. Or her scene with Mazhar Khan in Mehndi Rang Layegi (1982), where she gives him a mouthful about the first day of their married life.

Silsila

Meanwhile, her face launched glossy magazine covers besides the acres of prurient press about her love life. She couldn’t care less. There were the notable performances in Khoon Bhari Maang (1988) that ratcheted up her stocks besides fetching her the Filmfare Award for Best Actress yet again after Khubsoorat.

Song and dance were her trump cards. Be it the Lo saahib and chhup ja chaand mujras from Maati Maangey Khoon (1984) or the romantic numbers like Yeh kahaan aa gaye from Silsila and Kaisi lag rahi from Jhoota Sach (1984), she burnt up the charts. On screen, it’s tough to take a beautiful woman seriously especially when she danced like a dream and oozed oodles of sensuality. Perhaps that's why great roles eluded her. But whatever came her way she blitzkrieged through them.

Her ascent as a commercially viable top star was punctuated with yet another great turn in Umrao Jaan (1981). Rekha inhabited the skin and spirit of poetess Umrao Jaan Ada and gave it the right amount of sadness and desire. Justuju jiski thi usko toh na paaya hamne... Asha Bhosle’s voice poured poetry into the performance. Rekha gave it soul. Desolation never felt more poetic than in Umrao.

Gulzar captured this same desolation on a railway station in Ijaazat (1987). At close to 30, Rekha’s body language of a middle-aged woman with a history is note perfect. Khaali haat shaam aayi hai was perhaps a tribute -to a childhood lost in translation, an adult life lost to the vagaries of love. As Sudha, Rekha is the ‘Everywoman’ who embodied practicality and pain.

Rekha could also show us how sensuality could be turned into a performance. Take Basu Bhattacharya’s middling Aastha: In the Prison of Spring (1997) redeemed with a sincere Rekha act or Mira Nair’s Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (1996), her scenes are proof that middle-aged women had history coupled with experience. And history is often a camera’s best friend.

The camera is still in love with Rekha though we rarely see it save for an occasional Zubeidaa (2001) or a few award show appearances. There are subterranean depths still waiting to be plunged, emotions still waiting to be explored.

Every time I meet her it’s in her sea-facing office when the evening shadows lengthen. The beauty intact with no scars of time. The sun rays slant into the window and light up the face as always. And memories keep coming back. Of that desolate waiting in a station room of Ijaazat. Of unrequited love in Umrao Jaan. Or the forbidden love in Kalyug. In her case, you cannot separate the craft from the artiste. The hallmark of a truly great actor.

Wishing her a very happy birthday and may she blossom even more and come up with some more amazing performances.

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