Much ado about Rekha
- Created on Tuesday, 26 June 2012 11:09
- Last Updated on Thursday, 27 March 2014 10:39
- Written by womanspanorama
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Much ado about Rekha
Heartthrobs matter, and sometime matter intensely.
It happens with all elected members of parliament. The customary oath taking as members! But this time, the reporting seems to be perfect – on dot.
Yesteryear’s popular silver screen Goddess, Rekha was sworn in as a nominated member of Rajya Sabha by the Vice President Hamid Ansari.
Media and especially news agency and online reporting were near perfection.
Dressed in a simple beige sari - far from her fancy bright ‘Kaanjivaram’ sari - they reported the 57-year-old Bollywood star taking her oath in the Rajya Sabha. She had her hair tied back in a neat bun in a deviation from her loose hair and heavy make up; the scribes just could not miss it.
The nomination of Rekha along with cricket legend Sachin Tandulkar had expectedly sparked off a major political row.
The punters said it rather openly that on a defensive, the Congress, trying to recover from the severe electoral blow in Uttar Pradesh and a series of scams, wanted to look for face saving behind these legendary stars — one from cricket and the other from Bollywood.
The observations were not without good reason as the day nominations were announced by the government, Congress and Sonia Gandhi’s worst ‘enemy’ – the Bofors ghost – threatened to come back.
Who’s Done it? # Besides Sachin Tendulkar, which has also run into controversy with a court case coming up on the charge that constitution does not provide room for sportspersons to be nominated to Rajya Sabha, several celebrities have entered the House of Elders. M F Hussain was nominated in 1986, others nominated include Hema Malini, Shabana Azmi, writer Amrita Pritam, journalist Khuhwant Singh, father of Green Revolution M S Swaminathan and film maker Mrinal Sen. The members nominated by the President are persons having special knowledge or practical experience in respect of such matters as literature, science, art and social service. Notably, sports do not figure in all these. # Article 80 of the Constitution lays down the maximum strength of Rajya Sabha as 250, out of which 12 members are nominated by the President and 238 are representatives of the states and of the Union Territories. |
But more interesting part of the stories were ‘sidelight gossips and masala’ items and reactions too – especially to Rekha’s nomination.
One quickie such message that gained instant popularity was : what Amitabh Bachhan could not : bringing Rekha and Jaya Bacchan under one roof, the Congress party could.
A more mischievous one came from a Trinamool Congress member, who said, “Bringing Rekha in Rajya Sabha as a nominated member – and thus making her sit close to Jaya Bachchan was Sonia Gandhi’s revenge to Jaya — only a feminine spirit can understand that as the previous evening both Bachchans - Jaya and her husband Amitabh - had spoken about Bofors and suggested clearly that they were subjected to humiliation all these years”.
This was soon followed by a rather bizarre kind of episode vis-à-vis Indian parliament. The Samajwadi Party MP, Ms Jaya Bachchan reportedly was toying with the idea along her party bosses to urge the government and the Rajya Sabha chair to “change” her seat to avoid her coming in the same frame with co star and neo-nominated member Rekha. There was no official word on the same but reportedly Jaya Bachchan wanted to avoid appearing together on television (during live telecast of the House proceedings) with Rekha, considered her bête noire in film ‘Silsila’ and also in her personal life.
The blockbuster ‘Silsila’ in 1980s was based on the triangle love story where in the two stars were locked in a fierce battle over their ‘love interest’ played by the mega star Amitabh Bachchan. Punters definitely see a lot of similarity of their off-screen life into this film. The two ace actresses have never shared good personal chemistry since then. According to sources, Jaya Bachchan has seat number 91 in the Upper House; whilst Ms Rekha, nominated in eminent person category, has been allotted seat number 99, just behind Ms Jaya Bachchan.
Well, if all these were smaller capsules. Jaya apparently herself made things obvious on the day, Rekha took oath, at least according to media reports. Apparently, she had complained why camera was focusing on her when Rekha, considered to be an ex-flame of Amitabh, was taking oath.
But this story was dismissed by the Rajya Sabha secretariat with a Rajya Sabha TV insider merely saying, “we are not aware of any complain and even if we cannot help as it is Doordarshan which gives the footage”.
The media had got its fodder, the spices and masala. A few channels have already dubbed these as ‘Silsila 2’ in parliament.
But having said all these, we have to face the obvious question. Can the celebrities and Parliament go hand in hand and serve, importantly, any public good? According to many observers, there is inherent contradiction between a celebrity - by definition a luminary or at top and thus cut off personifying individualism; while in true sense Parliament on the other hand is an image of triumph of the collective will of common people.
The bigger question, would however, await answer, is the upper house of parliament, that is Rajya Sabha now fast becoming only a “backdoor entry point” to the corridors of power. Is it only fulfilling the Greed Revolution?
