Opinion Rekha in Vogue, Zeenat Aman on Instagram: The stars continue to carve out their own path — and are not given their due

While Vogue India has yet to get out of the glamour-youth-influencer mould — mind you, silver-haired Zeenat Aman made it only because she whipped up an inter-generational storm on Instagram — it’s heartening that the cult magazine’s Asian interpretations are reconceptualising women on their covers. Vogue in the Philippines recently featured a 106-year-old native tattoo artist for perpetuating the legacy of an ancient body art, Vogue Arabia rescued 69-year-old Rekha as a timeless persona who can still embody the power of imagination. And for somebody who has never been seen in anything but vibrant Kanjivarams and trademark temple jewellery in her offscreen appearances, Rekha has broken her own mould to embody the essence of women in command of their destiny, deriving inspiration from the Egyptian queen Cleopatra, Mughal queens and courtesans, the Maharanis and Raja Ravi Verma’s portraits. But it is in a maroon velvet bodycon and a turbaned headgear that she lets out her passion, loud yet in control, primaeval yet multiversal.

However, Rekha should have been celebrated as an icon, like her male counterparts and co-stars in the film industry, much much earlier. She’s every woman and superwoman, a reality and enigma, living the fullness of her oxymoronic arc. Just as life itself. Through years of becoming an actor and a star, Rekha never had much agency in the beginning. Or a place of privilege that today’s women actors can fall back on. A love child who was pretty much disowned by her father, films were not what she wanted but she was pushed into the field so that she could support her siblings and mother. Without the advantage of grooming, she stumbled into the Hindi film industry at age 14, having to learn an alien language, finding her feet among unknown people in a godfather-dominated industry and trying hard to fit into the body image of the on-screen heroine. She was fat-shamed, ridiculed for her looks and skin colour. Instead of retreating, she groomed and home-schooled herself, perfecting her body and mind, determined to be desired by both men and women and hit back in a language they understood. At a time when Jane Fonda’s aerobics ruled the video boom in the ’80s, Rekha became her Indian counterpart, propagating yoga and holistic health through her Mind and Body Temple videos, a fact that nobody acknowledges in these days of yoga diplomacy.

At a time when women-oriented films and pay parity were a myth, Rekha straddled even formula Hindi films with felicity and radiated her own aura. She played a rape survivor at the peak of her career in Ghar, depicting her character’s inhibitions and fears with an honesty that caught the attention of discerning filmmakers. As a modern-day Draupadi in Shyam Benegal’s Kalyug, a poetess and courtesan failed by the men in her lives in Umrao Jaan, to being the “other woman” in Silsila, she risked her stardom to represent stories that could have gone unheard. As Vasantasena, who is both desired and respected for her intellect in Utsav or the erotica mentor in Kamasutra, Rekha etched out these unconventional women characters with such empathy and realism that she effortlessly peeled away the layers of our moral hypocrisy. Yet she could be the girl next door spreading cheer in Khoobsurat. So yes, she busted the frontiers of onscreen womanhood much before OTT could. Yet nobody has thought of offering her a project.