The Rekha Sweatshirt

In 2004, Bollywood veteran Rekha appeared on the tell-all celebrity talk show Rendezvous with Simi Garewal for the second time. The episode was a particularly scandalous one, and the network televised it in three parts. After a drawn-out segment on Rekha’s relationship with Amitabh Bachchan, Garewal asked Rekha whether she would ever get married again. “To a man?” Rekha asks earnestly. “Well, not with a woman, obviously!” Garewal responds in horror, her eyes wide. Without skipping a beat, Rekha exclaims, “Why not!” followed by a charming grin. Even two decades later, Rekha’s message — and unbridled sass — continues to resonate. “That ‘why not’ has its own fan base,” wrote an Instagram user in 2022. “She’s the queer icon we always needed but never knew we had,” wrote another. Rekha, the dark-haired and deep-voiced actor, is known for bringing a plethora of diverse characters to life: be it the titular, commanding courtesan in Umrao Jaan (1981), or the quirky girl-next-door Manju in Kh