It was in the course of the 1970’s that Rekha acquired considerably of a cult standing. Though star had already been performing for some time earlier than that, her identify dominated tabloids on the time. One of probably the most sensational information at the moment was when she entered Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Kapoor’s marriage ceremony, sporting sindoor (vermillion) inflicting quite a lot of chatter.
However later, Rekha later informed Hindustan Times that she had come straight from a shoot, and had forgotten to take off the sindoor. She stated that she wasn’t ‘worried’ about folks’s reactions. “I think it looks rather nice on me. Sindoor suits me.”
In the unofficial biography, Rekha: The Untold Story, penned by Yasser Usman, the incident is described in a lot element. “Dressed in a magnificent white sari, Rekha had a bright red bindi on her forehead. But what caught everyone’s eye was the generous dabbing of sindoor in her hair. The cameras instantly pivoted away from Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh, and frenetically photographed Rekha’s curious new look. The dull drone of everyone murmuring and whispering filled the evening air; everyone wanted to know: had Rekha married?” He had written. According to a Cine Blitz report on the time, Rekha congratulated Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Kapoor after which stood ‘bang in the middle’ of the backyard. She then went over to Amitabh Bachchan and had a proper dialog with him for a few minutes.”
Ussman wrote that Rekha later cleared the air in an ‘anticlimactic’ interview. “She had come to the reception straight from a shoot. The sindoor and mangalsutra she was wearing were part of her get-up for a film, which she had forgotten to remove,” he wrote.
However, in keeping with a report printed in Movie in June 1982, at a National Awards operate, Rekha, who was being honoured with the award for greatest actress for Umrao Jaan (1981), was requested by then president of India Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, ‘Why do you have sindoor in your maang?’ Rekha answered, “In the city I come from, it’s fashionable to wear sindoor.”
