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A couple of years ago, when Kartik Aaryan and Kiara Advani starred in a film called Satyaprem Ki Katha, we saw the story of a sexual assault survivor, played by Advani, who was trying her best to come to terms with her trauma. But, when she gets married to a man, played by Aaryan, he makes it his job to ‘heal’ her, in the way he sees fit. Somehow, in 2023, it was decided that he was a ‘progressive’ man because he understood something as basic as ‘no means no’. So what if he makes decisions for Kiara’s Katha as if she has no say in her life? He is applauded because he is not as terrible as the man who assaulted her but isn’t that setting the bar too low? One would think that cinema and society have come a long way, so small wins, like a man understanding consent, should be appreciated but over four decades ago, another film touched upon a similar theme, and there too, the man won all the appreciation because he does not abandon his wife after she is brutally assaulted by a group of goons.
Rekha and Vinod Mehra-starrer Ghar, released in 1978, was the story of a newly wed couple who have everything they could ask for. A loving partner, a stable job, they are struggling to find a house but eventually, even that is ironed out. Almost halfway through the film, when you are still waiting for the conflict to kick in after listening to a near-perfect music album, the film pushes you to witness a horrible tragedy. Aarti (Rekha) and Vikas (Vinod) are walking on a footpath after watching a late-night show when a cab full of drunks pulls over. They attack Vikas, leave him in an unconscious state and Aarti is forcefully taken away. Days later, Vikas finds her in a hospital and is told that she has been through unimaginable horror.
Rekha plays her character with such sincerity that your heart goes out to her and Vinod, for his part, tries to act like a supportive husband for as long as he can. You can sense that his patience is running low because he has not been thanked for sticking around. Eventually, when he initiates sex and Aarti, who has been having flashes of the night when she was assaulted, pushes him away, you know this is going to push him over the edge. He literally slaps her moments after this and gives a long speech about how he has been enduring a lot since she was assaulted, and basically equates their trauma and grief. And it is in this moment that you realise that the man you watched in 2023 in Satyaprem Ki Katha isn’t a new and improved version. The expression might have changed but the core is still the same.
Manik Chatterjee has been credited as the director of the film but Yasser Usman’s book Rekha: The Untold Story says that since he met with an accident soon after filming began, producer NN Sippy asked Gulzar to take over the film. By this time, Gulzar had already made films like Mere Apne, Parichay Aandhi and his style can be seen evidently in Ghar too, especially in the way he merges the songs within the screenplay. Dinesh Thakur’s story of Ghar was applauded for being ‘progressive’ and was remade in several languages in India.
Amid all of this, it was widely believed that Rekha and Vinod Mehra’s chemistry in the film, especially in the scenes when they are lost in love, was because the two had been lovers in the past. In 1972-1973, it was even rumoured that Rekha and Vinod got married but split just after two months. Rekha, however, completely denied this but admitted that they were “close.” Rekha and Vinod both had many ups and downs in their personal life. Rekha was linked up with many of her contemporaries like Jeetendra and Amitabh Bachchan. And Vinod too, was quite used to these link up stories. He married thrice and was two years into his third marriage when he died due to a heart attack at age 45. Rekha also married but her husband, Mukesh Aggarwal, died just a few months after their marriage. She never married again.
Rekha and Vinod Mehra’s relationship was often discussed but none of them spoke much about it. If anything, theirs was a cordial relationship as they continue to work together even after their supposed break up, something that wasn’t usually seen in Bollywood in those days. In fact, Vinod’s wife Kiran Mehra, in an interview with The Times of India in 2021, said that Rekha attended their wedding and stayed in Vinod’s life until the end. Kiran said Rekha was like family to them and shared that she still considers her a friend. Rekha and Vinod’s relationship was a mystery to onlookers even back in the day but if anything was ever brewing between them, it was quite mature of them to handle it in a grown-up way.
Ghar wasn’t as ‘woke’ as it thought itself to be and in 2025, it demands an urgent makeover. Even though Satyaprem Ki Katha tried to be its updated version a few years ago, it is obvious that we are miles away from getting to a place where decent men don’t demand ‘thank yous’ for being nice.
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