*Indion.com | Rekha: The mystery woman*

Isn't it strange how she suddenly vanished from the public eye? Has Rekha withdrawn into a shell, or was she always there? 'Shell' we try to unsheath the million-dollar oyster mystery? Who is Rekha? More importantly, what does she represent in the public mind? These are questions that have no easy answers. Nor do we know where and how the Rekha mystique took roots.

Was the mystique a mistake? The few people who know Rekha a little better than a rank outsider - no one dares to claim he/she knows her well - describe her as a fun-loving gal, full of mazaa and masti. Not many people know that Rekha is a fantastic mimic. She can keep her friends in splits for hours by 'doing' her colleagues. Unlike Madhuri Dixit who can't get away with imitating her own maid to pretend she isn't home (and would she please stop trying?), Rekha has a number of very convincing voices to fob off unwanted calls.

But these 'convincing' voices seem to have convinced her that she's destined to be alone. I may be wrong. But I find Rekha frighteningly isolated. No one knows who the real Rekha is, not even Rekha herself. That husky whisper that she speaks in is totally cultivated. During moments of great emotional stress or immense enjoyment, the 'Rekha 'voice slips away to reveal a more earthy, believable and far less poised vocal persona.

Living in a make-believe world is a 'crime' that Rekha isn't alone in. Many of her colleagues, both male and female, who have carried the play-acting bit so far, have lost touch with reality in totality. I can count the number of real people that I know in Mumbai on the fingers of my one hand.

Rekha? I don't know at all. A year back I'd have arrogantly said, I don't wish to know her at all. But now, I think back on my one meeting with the Maharani Of Mystique with some bafflement and no exasperation. We met through the kind intervention of a mutual friend. Several questions were asked about my credentials to interview her. Answers were duly provided.

When I reached her office in Bandra where she meets anyone and everyone professionally (no one I know has seen the inside of her home; have you?), I was amazed to know that she had done some research on me too. At that time she granted interviews only to magazine/newspaper editors. Rekha made a concession for me. I should have been grateful. Maybe I was. But not enough. After the interview, she wanted to see the transcribed text. I happily let her, little realizing that she would turn around to say I hadn't understood her. I was upset. I dashed off an angry and sarcastic column for SHOWTIME. I believe it really hurt her.

On hindsight, I feel I was unfair to Rekha. To be understood has always been a huge issue for her. She wants it more than anything in the world. And yet somewhere she has cultivated a mask which cannot be penetrated. The mask cannot allow anyone to 'understand' her. I am not sure about what she's guarding herself against. Is it de-mythicization? Does she fear that if the mask peels off, people outside would see the emptiness within her and they would pity her?

When I met Rekha two years ago, three incidents had occurred in Rekha's career almost simultaneously. Basu Bhattacharya's Astha had become a surprise smasher. Saawan Kumar's Mother 2000 (then entitled Mother 1998) was ready for release and Rekha had turned down Deepa Mehta's Fire. Why? Well, in her own words, 'I could kiss Nandita Das a hundred times. But not in 'that' way.'

That, I thought, was pretty cute. But Rekha doesn't want to be cute. She wants to be clever. And in my long interview that evening, as she spoke intensely with the sun silhouetting her freshly scrubbed face, I thought Rekha was fated to play royal, enigmatic characters, not the frumpy Bette Midler kind of characters she played in Saawan Kumar's Mother '98 and now Harry Baweja's Mujhe Meri Biwi Se Bachao. Chee! Who wants to see Rekha as a frump? There are enough candidates around for that honour. Who wants Rekha to be anything but perfect?

There are very few women in this country who can carry off heavy gold ornaments with aplomb. Rekha is one of them. She has the personality and the face to look just right in heavily embroidered Kanjeevaram sarees and 24-carat gold paraphernalia without looking as though she's dressed to go to a wedding.

I was sorry to see her in Mother 2000. Trust Saawan Kumar to de-mystify Rekha so completely. As I watched her go through the embarassing 'comedy' of errors with her three old pals, Jeetendra, Rakesh Roshan and Randhir Kapoor, I kept thinking about her words to me when we had met:  'Mother isn't meant for arty types like you. It's a fun film.'

Yeah, fun for whom? Certainly not for the audience. Not even for Rekha herself. She doesn't have the face for frivolty. Nor the time. The time has come when she needs to break free of that self-imposed shell, for filmmakers to write roles specially for her. All she has to do is call up filmmakers . They would happily set aside whatever they're doing (okay, everyone except Sanjay Leela Bhansali who wouldn't set aside Devdas even if the world came to an end) and write roles specially for Rekha.

Regal roles, roomy roles. The kind she played in her best-known films like Muzaffar Ali's Umrao Jaan and Girish Karnad's Utsav. No one can carry off the 'period' look replete with elaborate costumes and regal bearing as well as Rekha. The camera seems to be virtually in love with her face.

Rekha is an extremely glamorous woman. Very few women have such an abundance of that quality. Rekha should cherish it.

Poise, beauty and even talent can be acquired. But glamour is something a woman is born with. And Rekha is born with it.

Even when she plays a de-glamorized housewife, like she did in Jabber Patel's Musafir or Basu Bhattacharya's extremely provocative Astha, she oozes the scent of sensuality. This naturally poses some practical problems as far as playing ordinary characters go. Like one critic-pal said after Astha, 'Can you imagine Rekha sweeping the floor with a broom. In Astha she makes it look like a golden ladle that she's stirring in an aphrodisiacal soup.'

Rekha isn't an ordinary woman. I realize that now. She shouldn't play ordinary women. And by 'ordinary' I don't mean just the face or the personality. I mean the entire attitude to life must exude an extraordinariness for Rekha to be accommodated in a role. Suddenly there is a lot of 'extraordinary' activity in Rekha's career. Saawan Kumar nearly wiped out Rekha's mystique in Mother 2000. She can seek solace in the thought that this self-styled poet-filmmaker doesn't spare anyone, not even Meena Kumari whom he systematically de-mystified in Gomti Ke Kinare.

Rekha doesn't forget friendly gestures. Mohan Segal, who gave her her first major break in Saawan Bhadon, approached her with Kasam Suhaag Ki several decades later. Rekha readily jumped onto the un-Rekha vehicle. Likewise, Saawan Kumar has always been by her side. And never mind if the projects that he designs for Rekha - Saajan Ki Saheli, Souten Ki Beti, etc - have been blotches on her career. Rekha knows what she's getting into. But she still does Saawan Kumar's films. How can she say no to a friend? Though, I guess, even by her generous standards, saying yes to another Saawan ki ghatiya after Mother 2000 would be murder.

Rekha has always gone out of her way to be generous and accommodating. Didn't she grant me - a far-from-perfect stranger - a precious two-hour meeting? And look what I did. I came home and bitched about her because she didn't like my interview with her. People in the film industry, specially the actresses, always seem to be letting Rekha down. They all claim to be her huge fans on her face, and she reciprocates warmly by befriending them, holding them close to her large heart, giving them make-up tips, etc. Remember Sridevi?

What does she get in return? A Mamta Kulkarni making a statement like, 'I don't want to be like Rekha.' There was unintentional irony there.

Mamta Kulkarni and all those other actresses who have shrugged off all ambition to be Rekha know they can never be like her. There's just one Rekha to reckon with. And what a pity. We could do with more such areas of solitary splendour in our lives.

The film industry would like to believe that Rekha plays hard to get with filmmakers. Not so. She has told me she would love to be part of Sooraj Barjatya's cinema. He claims to be her fan. So why doesn't Sooraj simply hop over to Rekha and get her to play Hrithik Roshan or Kareena Kapoor's mom in Main Prem Ki Deewane? I'm sure she would have no hassles in playing mom to star-kids whom she has coochie-cooed when they were toddlers. Recently she was very keen to play Akshay Kumar's mother in Suneel Darshan's Ek Rishta: The Bond Of Love. But Rekha's Raakhee-didi had already been finalized for the role. Even now when she's not a part of the film, Rekha drops in on the sets of Suneel's film to fraternize with the entire cast.

Rekha is making an effort to reach out to people. After a gap of nearly a year, she's back in cinema halls with as many as three releases this month. First out is Harry Baweja's Mujhe Meri Biwi Se Bachao with her Musafir co-star Naseeruddin Shah. I deliberately mentioned Musafir since Jabbar Patel is making efforts to get this long-in-the-cans film released. If you do get to see Musafir, you'd know why Rekha is Rekha. She makes a beauty statement out of her painfully ordinary character.

In January, we shall get to see Rekha playing two fascinatingly antithetical characters in Shyam Benegal's Zubeida where, for a change, she plays the first wife after making a mini-career out of playing the Other Woman! Next in line is Rajkumar Santoshi's Lajja. I don't know how far these immensely gifted directors have helped Rekha to lose her emotive inhibitions. But throughout her career, I have always found her to be inhibited on screen. Rekha is always holding back.

Is it a beauty thing? Or is it something deeper? Does the mask ever drop? Or does she sleep with it so that it's there to protect her against prying eyes when she wakes up in the morning?

I have no answers for these questions. All I know is, Rekha is a good human being and a volcanic actress. She deserves better than what life has so far given her. Agreed, she's the Chosen One. But chosen for what? No one knows. Not even Rekha herself.

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