Rekha- romacing Bandra..

IF THERE'S one feature I absolutely love to hate, it is this – Rekha doesn't allow me into her parlour, or even at the doorstep of her Bandra Bandstand villa. She absolutely insists no men allowed inside. Tough.

Perhaps I could disguise myself as the morning bread supplier, the plumber, even the TV repairman. Think not, because Lady R can see through every ruse, if I'm trapping her into giv ing a hot roast quote, she'll throw her chin back and laugh, "Khhhhalid, do you think you can trap me? Bahut logon ne try kiya..lekin.." Then she trails off towards another topic, soft-boiled and bland.

But she gets me. Besides Amitabh Bachchan, Gulzar saab, she is the only one who gets the dot-on pronunciation of my name…Khhhh, rolled but with the ease of an Urdu maulvi.

Rekha's house is verboten. She does talk about the wonder ful natural light which slants into the rooms, the garden she tends, the canvases she paints.

All meetings – film script readings, interview sessions and just gabfests – are conducted on the first floor of a close by apartment block, very 1950s with a glass desk, a swivel chair, reminding me, whether I like it or not, of Ajit sitting in his Loincloth in one of those Kahani Kismat Ki-type of studio sets.

It feels tremendous to converse with Ma'am Re. First her perfume exudes musk, her outfit often is beige raw silk with an uncoordinated gossamer gold scarf (men like me go nuts about this), and, of course, she's a Bandrakar.

She initiated the jogging fad by going hup-two-three on the oceanfront when jog was a joke ("Kya dieting vieting pe ho kya?").

She kicked off those Jane Fondaish Mind and Body Temple exercises with Ramma Banns at the Sea Rock, and she belongs to the place as much as, say, an apple does to Kashmir.

Like Bandra, there is an aspect that's very oldworldly about her – she draws back in alarm if you just want to give her a chummy bear hug.

"Aadaab," she says, with that Umrao Jaan lilt instead.

And like the more recently developed sections of Bandra, she can be hep, surprising you with her photographs shot in a slit skirt going right up to her waist. I kid her about that and she goes, "Khhhhhalid." And for me, that will always be the sex appeal of Bandra.

khalid.mohamed@hindustantimes.com