Rekha At 71: Pushing The Boundaries Of Women’s Representation One Film At A Time

A mature married woman, empathetic towards her partner’s previous love, draws a line at a specific time, and walks out when that line is crossed. With love in her heart and habits in her purse, this is the gloriously dignified, understanding, strong Sudha, of Gulzar’s Ijaazat (1987). Then there is the rebellious, spunky, youngest daughter of a single father, who chooses freedom over rules and discipline, and transcends friendships across ages—giving precedence to human desires, peace and laughter over authority. Exemplifying the difficulty of ensuring change in one’s home more than the rest of society is Manju, in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Khoobsurat (1980). Then there is Rakesh Roshan’s defining Khoon Bhari Maang (1988), which brings alive the extremities in women, through subservience to emancipation and revenge. While the film relies heavily on stereotypes, it still propels the idea of women avenging their pain, ill treatment and the violence they are subjected to (apart from what is done to their families). In Mira Nair’s Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (1996), Rasa Devi is the epitome of grace and wonder as she teaches Kamasutra to her students.

These are just four films from the filmography of one of Hindi cinema’s most popular actresses. Rekha—an evergreen enigma, has pushed the boundaries of how women can be represented on screen multiple times, not just by characters, but what her characters do in the films she is in. These are women who have agency, who think for themselves, who have an astonishing arc through the film and experience a wide range of human emotions and consequent transformations. In the years that have seen her maximum work, she has arguably been the only actress to have straddled so seamlessly worlds of the alternate, mainstream and middle of the road cinema, having worked with the likes of Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Yash Chopra, Girish Karnad, Shyam Benegal at the same time.

Apart from Rekha’s filmography unlocking and pushing women’s narratives well beyond comfort zones and stereotypes across films, there is also an incredible joy in finding that it is impossible to slot her into any bracket whatsoever. This is not only with respect to the genre of films she has acted in, but also the number of stars present in the films she chose, their mounting, setting, graph and scale. From having played myriad shades of the courtesan to the conventional, quintessential homemaker—with her desires, and journeys through defining moments of life—Rekha is un-slottable and consciously ahead of her times, taking women on a journey that has made them stronger, more powerful and more human on screen.

The purpose women served in the Salim-Javed school was to accentuate the plot for the male protagonist—mostly the ‘Angry Young Man’. The women, albeit working, and maybe with some agency, did fall into stereotypical segregations and tropes—either as weary mothers constantly suffering at the hands of a remorseless world, sexually and monetarily liberated women who were vamps, or love interests who became the moral compasses of men. In that world, Rekha’s female protagonists brought alive three critical things for women: screen time, which ensured that the stories and travails of women lived and women became more than side plots; the power for actresses to bring audiences into theatres, beyond conventionally romantic plots; and thirdly, the breakaway from molds in which women had hitherto been seen.

For instance, Manik Chatterjee’s Ghar (1978), in which Rekha played a rape survivor, is a beautiful and sensitive portrayal of the pain of violation—what it does to the survivor’s idea of safety, the relationship with one’s body, the very idea of intimacy, touch and even trust. Rekha’s transformation, from a loving wife to the woman coming to terms with the trauma of sexual violence, highlighted her prowess as a performer. Ghar not only presented the love of a new couple with extreme tenderness, but also portrayed the impact of rape on the intimate partner. It was a crucial film on the discourse of gender for the time.

Another unique part of Rekha’s filmography has been her representation of the courtesan. She has played the courtesan with various levels of depth, finesse and humanity. Prakash Mehra’s Muqaddar ka Sikandar (1978) marks her first. In her turn as the empathetic Zohra Bai, who deeply loved Sikandar, she epitomised the isolation and pain of unrequited love. 1981 is a crucial year for Rekha with two critical releases that defined her charisma for time immemorial. Muzaffar Ali’s Umrao Jaan and Yash Chopra’s Silsila released in the same year. If there is one film that any lover of Indian cinema has to associate with Rekha, it will undoubtedly be Umrao Jaan. Bringing alive the constant desperation of Umrao to flee her cage of the kotha, the pain of finding her way back home unexpectedly and not being accepted, of having her heart shattered by the man she loved, Rekha’s eyes spoke volumes in each scene. Draped in the beauty of Lucknow—with the grace of language and the charm of the time, space and history—Umrao Jaan reflected the politics of power in the context it was set in, how women were caught in it, and the specifics of shayari and kathak. Here, the courtesan went well beyond just the male gaze and to become her own woman. We saw a glimpse into her life of stifling entrapment, while the world outside saw glory and beauty.

A completely different shade of the courtesan is seen in Girish Karnad’s Utsav (1984). Based on Sudraka’s Mrichchhakatika, we see Rekha, then a massive mainstream star, take on the role of Vasantsena. Vasantsena is a woman of agency, who is wealthy and a master of her own heart. She loves Charudutt and exemplifies loyalty to that emotion. Under Karnad’s direction, we see Vasantsena less as a temptress and more as a woman deeply in love. The film’s design and context gave it a truly unique memory credit. 

Rekha’s silences on screen are as critical as her dialogues. In this context, two films become specifically important—Yash Chopra’s Silsila (1981) and Gulzar’s Ijaazat (1987). In Silsila, as Chandni, the ethereal Rekha was intense, deeply romantic and a quiet rebel. After losing her love to circumstances once, she refuses to lose him again, willing to put everything at stake. In a particularly iconic scene that she performs back-to-back with Jaya Bachchan, Rekha quietly asserts herself as a woman deeply in love with ‘Woh mera pyaar hai’. There is no drama, no over the top modulation—just a simple fact. While Jaya Bachchan still looks towards the camera, Rekha doesn’t. In another scene from the same film, after Amit’s (Amitabh Bachchan) accident when Chandni visits him in the hospital and they come face to face for the first time, both Bachchan and Rekha are only looking at each other. That scene is performed impeccably in its silence. 

Ijaazat (1987) is a film where silences are characters themselves, as is Sudha’s dignity and thehrav, that also offset Maya’s (Anuradha Patel) unpredictability and immaturity. As a woman navigating each day with the memory of her partner’s ex partner—who then returns to her husband’s life—with extreme patience, love, warmth and dignity, shows what friendship in a marriage looks like. Her assertion of not allowing Maya to enter her home as a final straw when she leaves, never to look back, is a masterclass in restraint. Her act is not out of spite, but to extricate herself peacefully from a situation she doesn’t believe she belongs to. The scenes in the waiting room of the railway station—that have her blend her characteristic apnapan with distance, a little bit of anger, love and comfort—bring alive the complexity of human emotions. Ijaazat is one of Rekha’s finest performances, using silence, distance and body language with veritable ease.

Once upon a time, Hindi cinema had good actors, who became stars. They were brave, they experimented and created films that are a part of cinematic legacy. There will be stars. And maybe they will live on. There will be actors who will come and go. Some will be forgotten and some will be remembered. But there will always be only one Rekha.