October 1990, an auspicious month for super star Rekha as it’s her birthday month, it couldn’t have got more inauspicious when her husband hanged himself to death using her dupatta at his farmhouse. This was in October and the media launched a nationwide witch hunt for Rekha labelling her the National Vamp. Btw that obscene title was given by national award winning actor Anupam Kher.
Rekha, a reigning evergreen star of Bollywood was still churning out box office hits at 35+ and going strong notwithstanding strong competitors like Dimple Kapadia, while Sridevi was confidently perched on the numero uno position. Come 1990 and Rekha was awarded the Filmfare best actress trophy for Khoon Bhari Maang(1988), the awards ceremony for 1988 films was held in 1990. Nursing a broken heart for years after a breakup with a mega star, Rekha quite accidentally got introduced to an upcoming Delhi based entrepreneur Mukesh Aggarwal, their common friend socialite Bina Ramani did the honours of uniting the two singletons.
Aggarwal was rising in the business circuits with his brand Hotline that manufactured television tubes for black and white and colorised television at that time, it was a joint venture along with his cousin Anil Gupta. One can’t analyse whether Cupid struck at the first meet itself but Aggarwal did get besotted with Rekha’s sensational appeal. Within a month he proposed marriage to her and they got married hurriedly in a Gandharva Vivah at a Juhu temple with only a priest as the witness. Later they had a formal wedding at Tirupati temple in the presence of Rekha’s mother, former actor Pushpavalli and the Aggarwal clan.
Why Rekha married in a hurry that too to a man who she knew for just about twenty days is still a mystery, soon after the Tirupati wedding the much in love couple headed for a clandestine London honeymoon. Their honeymooning pictures were splashed across news dailies and film glossies. On return Aggarwal headed to Delhi and Rekha got busy with her film assignments, must note that even in 1990 Rekha was a busy star with almost a dozen movies in hand that too playing central characters. The slightly long distance arrangement did not work out. It’s alleged Rekha’s Delhi trips stopped and Aggarwal did not find welcome at Rekha’s mumbai abode. The cracks further widened when Rekha filed for a divorce within six months of their marriage. In October 1990 on the fateful day Aggarwal was found hanging in his bedroom and used Rekha’s dupatta to take this drastic step.
Soon Rekha was adjudged the man eater, gold digger, vamp and was almost boycotted by Bollywood biggies and media. She was pronounced guilty by the media, showman Subhash Ghai labelled her as a blot on Bollywood while Anupam Kher called her a national vamp. Gossip magazines like Star and Style, Stardust and Cineblitz carried cover page full length articles describing Rekha’s vicious murderous bloodline. There were various versions of the suicide theory. One claimed Aggarwal was a schizophrenic patient and suffered from highly compulsive breakdowns. The other theory was Rekha’s busy schedule neglected Aggarwal who found his wife prioritising her career more than him. There was a third version which raised questions about Rekha’s intimate liaison with her secretary Farzana Jaffrey who lived with her, it was alleged Jaffrey had blocked Aggarwal from visiting Rekha.
Nevertheless the witch hunt continued for almost a quarter of the year, Anupam Kher even predicted that it was curtains for Rekha’s career, but the tide changed. After a while by 1991 the media, public, Bollywood had forgotten that there once existed a young business man called Mukesh Aggarwal, Rekha bounced back in 1991 with a vengeance, rose like a Phoenix, her 1991 USA tour was a super success, her comeback Phool Bane Angaarey(1991) was a box office superhit even featuring in top ten hits of the year. And she went on a signing spree further consolidating her position as a senior actress.
Nobody really knows why Aggarwal took that fatal step, as there was no definite suicide note left behind, but the brief witch hunt and character bashing that followed was in many ways uncalled for, though it didn’t put an end to her career but it did raise accountability of media personnel and Bollywood as a whole, how they targeted their own fraternity at a time when she may have actually needed their compassion and empathy.
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