Rekha married Mukesh Aggarwal despite doubts because Amitabh Bachchan wouldn’t acknowledge her, says Bina Ramani

Rekha and Mukesh were married for 8 months.

Recalling her meeting with Mukesh in more detail, Bina said, “He was not descriptive. Nothing much, he was short and dark, but when you got to talking and engaging with him, he was very nice, but he could pass you like six times and you would not recognise him. She, on the other hand, was a diva.” She added, “With so much sincerity in his eyes, he told me if he could just speak to Rekha. He said, ‘If there is a possibility that I could meet her someday, you have no idea what it would mean to me, and what you would have achieved, she would be the happiest person on earth.”

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‘Can you see him standing next to me?’ Rekha asked Bina Ramani

After her meeting with Mukesh, Bina recalled introducing him to Rekha over the phone. “I think I introduced them on the phone, and she didn’t know what he even looked like. She spoke to him for 2-3 minutes and told me to give his number to her. She told me not to give her number to him. She took his number and then called him.”

Mukesh and Rekha developed a bond over the phone, but Bina admitted that Rekha was sceptical about his looks. She said, “They were in two different cities. Bombay and Delhi. He was over the moon. He could not believe that this has happened to him, and then they exchanged pictures and then she calls me and says, ‘Can you see him standing next to me?’ I mean, there is Amitabh Bachchan and it’s her vision. So I tell her, ‘No, not really, but he seems like a nice man, but this is in your hands and I don’t want to take any decision for you’.”

Bina added, “But she realised what feels good for her at that time from that heart break that she was in. And perhaps she wanted that obsessive love.” Bina further recalled how Rekha and Mukesh first met at her friend’s house in Mumbai. “They seem to be happy. They have spoken so much already, and they knew quite a lot about each other, so maybe it didn’t take that long and from there on.”

‘Rekha-Mukesh’s marriage was a fantasy’

After their first meeting, Bina recalled hearing the news of their marriage. “Then suddenly we read in the paper or TV that they got married. I was in shock. I didn’t expect it to be so soon. I expected certain more conversations between us,” she said.

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When asked about Mukesh’s suicide just seven months after marrying Rekha, Bina admitted that the couple’s marriage was a ‘fantasy’, as they had two very different lives in two different cities. “I think in due course with Rekha‘s life being in Bombay, it was part fantasy, wishing for the best, her life was deeply into Bombay life. There was no way she could have adjusted to Delhi. She must have come to Delhi a few times but I was no longer in touch with her,” she said.

Rekha was ostracised by Bollywood, called a ‘witch’

The happily ever after never came true for Rekha. The duo divorced a few months after their honeymoon in London. Mukesh died by suicide before the divorce could come through and his mother accussed Rekha. Her own industry turned against the actor, calling her a ‘witch’ and publicly naming and shaming her. She had responded to the hate with an interview with Filmfare titled, ‘I didn’t kill Mukesh’. Fourteen years after her divorce, Rekha opened up about her short-lived marriage with Mukesh in a conversation with Simi Grewal. “One went through the whole gamut of feelings. The initial shock and then denial that ‘no, this can’t be really happening to me’ and later on, this intense anger and then you go on this self pity trip that ‘what did I do wrong? I never meant to hurt anybody’. Then trying to understand it, in vain, of course, because you never understand it. And then, finally, of course, acceptance.”