When Rekha’s father Gemini Ganesan recalled she didn’t want younger sister to join films: ‘I am suffering, why should she go through same hell?’

However, Gemini refrained from interfering in his children’s personal choices, explaining that he believed in letting them handle their affairs independently. He cited Rekha’s rumoured relationship with Amitabh Bachchan as an example of something he chose not to intervene in, despite public scrutiny. “People tell me that Rekha has messed up her personal life by getting involved with Amitabh. But I never discuss Rekha’s personal affair with her. Why should I?,” he had said.

Gemini also reflected on his own relationships, mentioning how his marriages to Rekha’s mother, Pushpavalli, and actress Savitri, sparked scandal in the industry at the time He said, “When I married Savitri and Pushpavalli several years ago, eyebrows were raised, and it became the biggest scandal in the industry. And yet today no one is aghast when they hear about Dilip Kumar marrying Asma or Dharmendra marrying Hema. So, in one way I think I have been the trend setter for extramarital involvements in the industry.”

Earlier, in an interview with Simi Garewal, Rekha shared that she never truly knew her father, who left her mother, Pushpavalli, when Rekha was just a baby. “I was a baby when he moved out of our lives. I don’t even remember him being at home,” she said. She also recalled attending the same school as her step-siblings and seeing her father drop them off, yet he never seemed to notice her. “Looking back, maybe I did miss him. But when you haven’t tasted something, you don’t know what it means. I didn’t know what the word ‘father’ meant,” she had said.