Rekha was once forcibly kissed by this actor, was shocked, left crying but he laughed and said…, his name is…
There is frequently more to the glitzy world of Bollywood than meets the eye, where show business and stardom are frequently viewed as the most important qualities. Every glitzy look and every moment of fame has a backstory that is rarely shared.One such tale is of a legendary actress.
Daughter of legendary Tamil actor Gemini Ganesan, the actress we are talking about is none other than Rekha. Destined for the limelight, Rekha’s successful journey into Hindi cinema came with a lot of struggles. From not having command over language, to being typecasted and facing public criticism, Rekha went through a lot.
She did her first film Sawan Bhadon, in 1970. The movie brought her into the limelight, and later she delivered a series of hits like Ghar, Muqaddar Ka Sikandar, Mr. Natwarlal, and Dharmatma. But behind the screen, was a young actress traversing a minefield of discomforts, one of which is a particularly black page from her early years.
As Yasser Usman revealed in his book Rekha: The Untold Story, He shared a controversial event that happened with Rekha during the shoot of Do Shikari, when she was naive, new, and vulnerable.
Director Kuljeet Pal, actor Biswajeet, and cinematographer Raja Nawathe, as per the book, had a conspiracy to shoot a kiss without talking about it to Rekha earlier. As shooting was going on, Biswajeet kissed her on the lips without warning. The act was shot by surprise, leaving the actress unaware of any such scene being shot.
Years on, Biswajeet justified the act, saying it was not done for fun but was required for the movie. Rekha was said to be left shocked and embarrassed. The incident raised controversy regarding consent, professionalism, and ethics on the set—issues that were hardly recognized in the industry back then.
But director Kuljeet Pal later asserted that Rekha had been apprised and had agreed to the scene. He maintained that scenes like these were few for actresses in Hindi films at that time and posited that if Rekha was ever uncomfortable, she could have brought it out in public. This inconsistent account has ever since buried the truth under mystery, but it cannot remove the emotional damage on Rekha. However later Rekha got married in 1990 to Industrialist Mukesh Agarwal, which only went for seven months as later he died by suicide.
The movie, which started filming in 1969, wasn’t put out on the screens until 1979—a decade that witnessed Rekha’s remarkable transformation from a self-conscious teenager to a self-assured and award-winning actress.
Speaking of Rekha’s personal life, her relationship with Amitabh Bachchan has always been in the news, even though they never accepted it. While Rekha and Amitabh’s relationship never materalised into anything, they both their respective partners.
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