Exclusive: Rekha embodied an ancient sensuality says Mira Nair

There was no one else but Rekha who I thought of to teach Kamasutra to the girls in my film Kamasutra: A Tale Of Love that I made in 1995. Rekha of course, through her decades of being in cinema and embodying an absolute ineffable sense of mystery and an ancient sensuality, was ideal for the way the Kamasutra would speak of how to conduct oneself in sex and mores and customs of time. These required teachers. And Rekha certainly embodied that.

And so there was never anyone else for me. It was a both complicated and direct process to knock on her door and to ask her to be in this film. I certainly was both in the industry and out of the industry. I was a what you call an outlier. But I think Rekha loved my first film – Salaam Bombay! (1988) and wanted to, I think, entrust herself to me on this adventure, to evoke a time in India when sexuality and the learnings of social rules were normal and commonplace and matter of fact and unaffected by the Victorian mores that the British bought to our culture, long after the Kamasutra was written.

Yes, we did have several conversations about the role. I think Rekha’s primary interest and challenge was to perform in English. I think it was her first time and I also was struggling with whether one could use the English language for our own ancient texts in a contemporary way or not. But I had committed to the experiment of making it in English. And Rekha was very much a student and a humble one, in getting the intonation right, getting the dialogue correct. She was absolutely unabashed about imitating me if it had to be, in the way she had to speak. But, she really was a pro and understood that it role went way beyond memorization. Once she got the dialogue inside of her, it was essentially always a “teaching” that she was speaking about. She wasn’t merely spouting dialogue. She made it appear very colloquial and not arch at all.

In terms of costume, of course I knew the care that she took and the awareness that she brought to how she felt good and how she wanted to appear. I think she understood the simplicity and the minimalism of the costuming that we were going for. There was one huge difference in her costumes, which was what we called the peacock dress (at that time), I asked Abu Jani-Sandeep Khosla to make for Rekha. It was a very elaborate costume with actual peacock feathers. Rekha was always involved with the details of costuming, whether it be the simple white cotton sarees and borders compared to the peacock dress. She is someone who embodies a great love and also a respect, I think, for the accoutrements that we have to dip ourselves in to really perform the role fully. And costuming, like makeup, was a big integral part of how Rekha saw the role.

Of course there was great awe on set when Rekha was around. People looked up to her in the most beautiful way actually. There was never any mobbing, there was a real sense of quiet respect and because we were really shooting not in studios but in paddy fields and temples and real locations in Khajuraho. There was a sense of actually, a temple feeling, of quiet devotion one could say even when Rekha performed.

I remember when I showed her the film in Regal cinema during a private screening. She was absorbed through the screening in the film. She plays the role of a teacher, it’s not the main role of Maya (Indira Varma) or Tara (Sarita Choudhury), she’s their teacher in the film. She looked at me after the film and said, “You know Mira, it’s very beautiful. But my fans will be disappointed because I don’t get to do that much.” I laughed and said, “Rekha ji you gave us the anchor in the film. It is very difficult and tough to be the anchor of such a film and thank you for that.”

Filmmaker Mira Nair on Rekha in her sensuous film Kamasutra: A Tale Of Love. Continue reading …Read More