Rekha At 70 The Enduring Mystique

More than a generation after she was last seen on screen, the mystique that she successfully wrapped herself in continues to serve her well in the public imagination. Her fleeting public appearances in dazzling silk sarees and makeup continue to beguile the camera in the same manner it did at the peak of her career

- Vishwas Kulkarni

In the world of high camp, you can't become a legend unless you are abductably gorgeous; reclusive to a fault; and have spent a lifetime finding love and failed in the quest. Rekha has delivered on these preconditions to a tee. But what also sets her apart from contemporaries is that in her prime she was not merely Venus but an exceptional actress.

But now that she has clocked 70, let's start from the very beginning, when she first landed in Bombay as a plump teenager with a tacky make-up aesthetic, a hideous fashion sense and a sheen of saucy illegitimacy. She was the daughter of Tamil megastar Gemini Ganesan, but he had never acknowledged having sired her. While this paternal void could have ignited a lifelong yearning for a protective male figure, the vicious assault of the media branding her as a vern from hell seems to have catalysed a lifelong narcissism that helped transform her from an ugly duckling to India’s most desirable woman in the 1980s.

The yearning for a protective male figure likely gave us Bollywood’s most notorious urban legend—a “love affair” with then-reigning superstar Amitabh Bachchan who was 10 years her senior. Starting with Do Anjane(1976) until Silsila (1981), the screen couple shared a sizzling chemistry and delivered blockbuster after blockbuster for a straight fiveyear run of ten films.

To Rekha's credit, who had been scalded by the Cine Blitzes and Stardusts of the world, she now knew how to play the game. Thus, by the time, the tabloids and magazines got to this star-crossed "love story", Rekha and the press had already rechristened the Big B. He was now merely referred to as "Him".