By Srijony Das Last Updated:
While the world blesses star-crossed lovers, they also feel the pain of a love that remains incomplete and distanced. One such unfulfilled love story back in the 80s is that of yesteryear’s angry young man, Amitabh Bachchan and his gorgeous lady love, Rekha. For the unversed, their relationship never attained a happily ever after, and both went ahead to live starkly opposite lives. Fast forward to today, while Amitabh Bachchan is a happy family man with his wife, Jaya Bachchan, along with their children and grandkids, Rekha, on the other hand, lives a secluded life all by herself at the age of 68 years.
In the 80s decade of Bollywood, the love triangle between an already married man, Amitabh Bachchan, his love, Rekha, and his wife, Jaya Bachchan, was something furiously gossiped amongst all. However, while nearly all the pages of film magazines would not feel enough writing about their complicated situation, there is one lesser-known anecdote that has not reached many. During the peak of Rekha and Amitabh’s affair, the duo worked closely on the sets of the film, Laawaris, which also featured a gorgeous Iranian dancer. The strong news that blossomed instantaneously was that Amitabh had reportedly fallen in love with the dancer.
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Soon enough, the gossip mills churned out this juicy news onto nearly all the news headlines, and it didn’t take much time to reach the ears of Rekha herself. Having felt betrayed and angered, it was speculated that Rekha had rushed to the film sets and confronted Amitabh about the same. But, instead, what was expected to be a mature clarification ended as a bitter fight between the lovers to the extent that an infuriated Amitabh even slapped Rekha a few times.
As with every lover, this move by Amitabh hurt Rekha to an unbelievable extent. The consequences of this unfortunate fight thereafter lead to Rekha rejecting to work with Amitabh Bachchan and his then-wife, Jaya, in the iconic film, Silsila. However, while the Bollywood buffs at this point can really understand how sad it would have been if Rekha remained headstrong about her refusal to work in the film, gladly, it was the film’s director, Yash Chopra, who had placated and pleaded hard to convince Rekha to get on-board with the film. And as they say, the rest is history!
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While Rekha and Amitabh Bachchan’s affair was not just mere speculation, and in fact, Rekha many times openly spoke about their blissful time spent together, Amitabh Bachchan, on the contrary, had refused all such claims of having been in any relationship. While many of the fans pitied Rekha’s unfortunate fate at love, others tagged her as the ‘other woman’ in the life of a happy family man. However, Rekha had once openly reacted to Amitabh Bachchan’s denial of their relationship. She had mentioned that she understood his action as a way of protecting his hard-earned image and his concern towards his family and children. In her words:
“Why should he have not done it? He did it to protect his image, to protect his family, to protect his children. I think it is beautiful, I don’t care what the public thinks of it. Why should the public know of my love for him or his love for me? I love him, he loves me – that’s it! I don’t care what anybody thinks.”
What do you think about this unheard anecdote from the unhappy love story of Rekha and Amitabh Bachchan? Let us know!
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