THE WOMAN GOD IS MADLY IN LOVE WITH....

Ali Peter John

I have a very strong feeling which only keeps growing that this absolutely glorious woman called Rekha Ganesan gives God all the reasons to wonder if he had created her. If there is one woman who has baffled all those who have seen her and known her for years, it must be this woman. If there are thousands of men who still can not understand how a woman can only grow more and more beautiful and gorgeous with the passing of time, it is this woman.

If there are women all over the world who still wonder how a woman can be stunningly beautiful at sixty plus ,it is this woman. If any audience in which she makes an appearance and has all eyes focused on her, it is this woman. If there have been actresses of all generations who have dreamed of being anything like her, it is this woman.If there are lakhs of people who are still waiting to hear the true story of a mysterious woman, it is this woman .

If there are film makers and writers who still nurture the ambition of working with her, it is this woman. If there are heroes and even legends who have felt that they have missed a grand opportunity of working with her, it is this woman. If there are writers and journalists who are literally dying to write books about her, it is this woman ,who has vowed that she would not write her autobiography, it is this woman. If there are both saints and sinners who have been tempted and have been distracted by a woman, it is this woman. If both the men in their ivory towers and on the streets and slums who love her with the same passion, it is this woman .If some of the most genuine and even dirty leaders in the Rajya Sabha have not been able to focus on their agenda for a session, it is this woman.

If there is any woman who has defied me to describe her and her beauty, it is this woman. If there are millions of people who ask why she has not got married and why she still has a vermilion sindoor on her forehead, it is this woman.If there are people who have been curious to know how she wears the most expensive sarees, the most elegant and exclusive ornaments and jewelry of every kind and manages to live the life of a superstar like no other when she has not been working for more than five years now, it this woman.

If there is one million questions being asked about the life and turbulent and loving times in life, it is this woman...And if there is one woman who I think I know and still know nothing about, it is this woman,who is known as Rekha which was a very ordinary and simple name till she took the name and made it synonymous with the infinite,it is and can be and will be the one who the world above, the world below and the worlds still unknown to man.....

Why am I going poetic and even philosophic when I am talking about an actress who has lived a life no or very few woman anywhere in the world can dare to live and survive on her own terms, a position she has earned by conditions and rules she has created for herself which she has formed from the myriad experiences that she has faced during the last six decades ?This question doesn't only apply to me, but to all those who have seen the metamorphosis of a rare butterfly to flites around the garden called the world just once in many many years. How did this miracle happen, how did the young woman who was once called an "ugly duckling ",a "kaali bhains "and a "panavati "grow into an apparition and a vision become what she is today ? I will only trace the landmarks in her life and then leave the answers to the time today, the time to come and to history....

Rekha Ganesan had come to Bombay like one of the hundreds of girls who had dreamed of making it's in Hindi films. But, she had a background .
Her father was Gemini Ganesan, the superstar of Tamil films who was known as "the Adonis "and her mother was

Pusphavalli, an actress. She had done a Tamil film as a leading lady when she was only twelve years old. She had first lived at the Ajanta Hotel in Juhu in Bombay, which is still there and had the first office of Amitabh Bachchan's ABCL.She had signed her first film with Biswajeet and as her hero and had her first bad experience when Biswajeet who had to kiss her in a scene didn't stop the scene even after the director had called cut .She can never forget that scene which allmost made her give up.

She stayed on to do other insignificant films, but shot to stardom with Mohan Segal's (the director who had once refused to even do an audition with Amitabh Bachchan)"Saawan Bhadon ".She moved on in life and shifted to her own house in "Beach Apartments" in Juhu where she had neighbours like Jaya Bhaduri, Shekhar Kapur, Asrani and the famous writer Inder Raj Anand,the father of actor-director Tinnu Anand.

It was when Hrishikesh Mukherjee cast her in "Namak Haraam"with Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan that the industry took her a little more seriously, but she was still a struggling star. Some years later, Hrishida cast her in "Khoobsurat "and the film saw her as a sensitive and consummate actress. Interestingly, she had played what many called, "the female version of Amitabh Bachchan ".

She had become a favourite of the gossip magazines which kept linking her with her heroes like Kin Kin (Kiran Kumar )and Vin Vin (Vinod Mehra),who she is supposed to have married in a private ceremony. The talk about her affairs never stopped and she was even written about as having affairs with actors like Raj Babbar and even younger actors like Sanjay Dutt and Akshay Kumar.

But,it was while she was walking through fire that she met a man who she referred to as "Him"(the way she even referred to God).It was this "Him"who was going to change her entire life. He brought about a sea change in her entire persona. She was now a new and beautiful woman who could speak English like even the English couldn't speak it .She had all the grace and poise and could face any kind of situation with the confidence that was difficult to imagine for those who had seen her take her first few steps. Jeetendra, who was her first big hero was working with her in one of their last films together told me, "ye kya ho gaya ! Aaj toh isko choone ki himmat nahi ho rahi hai "

The four films that she did with "Him" catapulted her to the kind of stardom very few actresses have known or seen. The "Him "in her life had transformed her like a modern day Doctor
Dolittle or even better. The role the "Him" had played in her transformation is something that is now a part of her .She was once asked if she was in love with "Him"and she shot back in love,"why me, every woman from the age of six to eighty is in love with him "?

Her growth as an actress of a very high order was thanks to the directors she worked with, especially Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Manek Chatterjee (who directed her in"Ghar"which she considers her favourite film, Gulzar, Muzaffar Ali, who directed her in "Umrao Jaan"for which she won her only National Award),T.Rama Rao (with whom she did a record number of nine films)and Girish Karnad (who directed her in "Utsaav "which got her International acclaim, but was the film that ruined Shashi Kapoor as a producer and made him give up making "art films "with art film directors about who he once said, "saale, inn daadi waalon ne ek garib Shashi Kapoor ko barbad kar diya ". Incidentally, Shashi's wife Jennifer Kendall who had played a great role in Shashi's "36 Chowringhee lane "was in the race for the National Award, but Rekha had won it by just one vote and Shashi could never forgive anyone for his wife losing the award because his wife died a few months after the National Award was declared.

There have been many of her fans and rivals who have seen wanting to know the secrets about her beauty and have not succeeded. But she once told me about how she grew all the herbs and other things needed for her to keep her beauty intact in the garden outside her bungalow. In the seventies, She had become a follower of the new exercise called aerobics founded by the actress-social activist Jane Fonda. It is not known whether she still follows it, but yoga,dance and other excises she has discovered own her own keeps her as fit as she is. But, She once said, "the best excise to be healthy and glowing is to have a positive attitude and to be at peace with yourself whatever happens and above all to be in love all the time".

I have two very unusual experiences with her I can never forget. I did not know her well or not at all. I was drunk and had visited the sets of one of her films. She complained to my editor and asked her to take action against me.My work had saved me, but my trouble with Madam X had not ended.

She was shooting in Udaipur soon after her businessman man husband Mukesh Agarwal has committed suicide in Delhi. The producer K.C.Bokadia has invited my editor to Udaipur, but she insisted that I go even though she knew Rekha was shooting and what had gone wrong between us .I went .

Rekha came down the steps of the palace which was turned into a five star hotel to see who had come from the press from Bombay. And the only question she asked was, "has Ali come ?"I was prepared for the worst, but she said, "Ali I want you to come to my suite at six thirty tomorrow morning "I didn't sleep that night and reached her suite at the time she asked me to. And for the next four days I was with her and she opened up like we were old friends who had not spoken to each other for years. I wrote about our meeting and what she had said. I had in the opening paragraph written about how she was as mysterious as the sea outside her bungalow and she seemed to have liked it and the whole article which was carried on one full page of "Screen ".She called me and said, "What are you doing in film journalism, Ali ?

You should have been a poet and write poetry sitting in some cottage near the sea.That were the beginning of a beautiful friendship which has not changed in all these years. Last year, I was invited by Manisha Koirala to her book launch and Rekha who was there was surrounded by a crowd and I felt like meeting her and I just called out"Rekha"in a feeble voice and she turned back and came running towards me and we didn't have to say much. Our body language and our eyes said it all. See my profile picture on Facebook and you will believe in what I say. Don't I look as old as her grand father and she like my beautiful and mysterious grand daughter ?

I felt proud for India when she accepted my request to meet a delegation of actors and filmmakers from France. The way she talked to them floored them and the leader of the delegation who knew English said,"Madam Rekhaaa ,what are you doing here ? You should be a leading star in Hollywood ".
The delegation was soon going to be in trouble. Rekha asked them if they had met Amitabh Bachchan and when they showed ignorance about his name, she asked them, "how can you talk about Indian cinema without talking about the greatest actor of India ? I take back the interview I have given you. Go and meet him and then come and talk to me again".

I have been following Rekha from almost her first day in Bombay. But when I see her now anywhere, I visualize her being dressed up by angels sent by God in advance saints decorating her hands,feet and nose with anklets, ear rings and a pair of gold paayals and than God himself coming down with the best "gajara"made of her favourite mogra flowers and placing it with all "His"love in her hair and whispering in her ear, "go, my beautiful creation and conquer the world, because in your conquest is my glory. That is why I keep saying God has always been in love with his favourite creation who believes that she is what she is beacuse of "His "love for her and calls god the lover who will never give her up because she is all his.