The yesteryear diva Rekha has had an illustrious journey in Indian cinema. She debuted as a teen with the movie Anjana Safar and till now she has acted in 180 movies. Today, the actor has much-deserved fame, respect within the movie business and the love of her many followers. But her beginnings weren’t as easy. She had a troubled childhood and needed to enter a career she by no means desired to get into. Rekha, one of many best main girls of Bollywood, received into the performing enterprise not as a result of she wished to grow to be an actor, however as a result of the monetary situation of her household was not good after her father deserted them.
On her 67th birthday, we check out what the Umrao Jaan of Bollywood stated about her troublesome childhood and her father, of whom she has no reminiscence as he left her and her mom when she was only a child.
Rekha, who’s now dubbed an enigma, was born as Bhanurekha to Tamil famous person, Gemini Ganesan and Telugu actor Pushpavalli. She was a really shy and a loner. Despite having to develop up with no father and having to drop out of faculty to assist the schooling of her siblings, Rekha described her ‘little’ childhood as “wonderful” to actor-anchor Simi Garewal on her present Rendezvous with Simi Garewal.
Rekha and Sachin as youngster artists within the film Ek Akela. (Express archive photograph)
When Garewal requested Rekha how was the connection between her mother and father, the actor replied, “It was a romantic relationship, and anything filled with romance is not easy.” When requested what does she bear in mind of her father, she stated, “I was a baby when he moved out of our lives. I don’t even remember the time when he was at home.” But the actor by no means received the impression that her household was dysfunctional. Instead, she heard fascinating tales about her father from her mom, who was “dizzy and drunk in the love of my father.”
Though Rekha has no reminiscence of Gemini Ganesan as a father, she remembers the famous person as a ‘fabulous’ lover each on and off-screen. “He was a fabulous lover of my mother or a fabulous lover on screen, I was totally fascinated watching him on the screen,” Rekha instructed Garewal.
Rekha is the daughter of Tamil famous person, Gemini Ganesan and Telugu actor Pushpavalli. (Express archive photograph)
The Muqaddar Ka Sikandar actor’s first impression of her father was when she noticed him dropping her stepbrother and stepsisters to highschool. Gemini Ganesan married 3 times, Alamelu, actor-singer Savitri and actor Pushpavalli. “All the children, we are a dozen of them, were in the same school. A couple of times he came to drop other kids, so that was my first impression of him, I was like, ‘oh this is appa..’ But I never had a chance to meet him. I don’t think even he noticed me there. He never saw me,” Rekha recalled.
Asked if it ever bothered her that her father by no means observed her, she stated, “Maybe I blanked it out. At that age, I don’t think it makes a difference. I was more worried about my homework or why my sister is prettier than me.” However, Rekha thinks she ‘may be’ missed her father although she additionally believes, “When you don’t taste something, you don’t know what it means. I didn’t know what the word father meant. For me the only father was the one in the church, that’s all I know of a father. A father’s love must be very different from a mother’s love. but I really have no idea about it.”
Rekha spent most of her childhood along with her grandmother and aunt since her mom was out for capturing, and the one male affect in her early days was God. “If God can be called a man, then I guess God. My elder brother was also not a role model. He looked up to me and depended on me. I think he still does,” stated Rekha when requested concerning the male affect in her life. Later within the interview, she revealed that it was filmmaker Mohan Sehgal who was the ‘first father figure’ in her life.
The actor is an ageless magnificence. Among her contemporaries, Rekha is the one who has aged gracefully. But she by no means took the performing career voluntarily. It was due to the troublesome monetary scenario on the home that she needed to begin working the movies. “There were six children and their education, so my mother said you have to do it. I said I will do only one film (Anjana Safar),” Rekha shared. But as everyone knows, it didn’t finish with only one movie.
But being the livewire that she is, Rekha continues to be “grateful for everything that has happened in my life. Because if it didn’t happen in that sequence, if the screenplay was not written in the way it was written then, I wouldn’t be the person I am today.”
