Earlier this week, ETimes brought you an exclusive chat with Vinod Mehra’s daughter Soniya where she clarified that the rumours about her having quit Bollywood were not true. The young lady also revealed that she has got engaged to her long-time boyfriend Kunal. While talking to her, the topic drifted to her father’s closeness with Rekha.
It so happened that we asked Soniya which film of her father would she like to be remade with her playing the female lead. Soniya was quick to put her choices across, saying, “I would love to do the remakes of ‘Ghar’ and ‘The Burning Train’.”
The first choice ‘Ghar’ means that Soniya aspires to do Rekha’s role in the remake of the 1978 Manik Chatterjee-directed film. We asked Soniya if she had ever met Rekha, to which she replied, “Yes, I have had the privilege of met Rekhaji 3/4 times. We have bumped into each other in social functions. She is one of the most beautiful and interesting women I have ever met.”|
As the interaction proceeded, we asked Soniya pointblank if her father and Rekha had got married as rumours suggest. The book ‘Rekha: The Untold Story’, penned by Yasser Usman, reportedly says that they had tied the knot and describes a very unpleasant meeting between Mehra’s mother and Rekha. However, later, Rekha stated in Simi Garewal’s ‘Rendezvous’ that she had never married Mehra. Replied Soniya, “I cannot comment on that question because I am not in the know. It was all before I was even born (Vinod Mehra passed away when Soniya was just one-and-half year old). Frankly, I also don’t have a right to comment on it as it is their life. As far as I am concerned, they were just close and dear friends.”
Hasn’t she felt the temptation to ask her mother Mrs Kiran Mehra if her father had indeed tied the knot with Rekha, we asked next? “Honestly no, I haven’t felt that way. Everyone has a past and his/her own journey. It’s not my place to judge or enquire. If it’s something important, I will be told,” Soniya quipped.
Currently, Soniya has parked herself in Dubai where she works as a yoga instructor and Mrs Kiran Mehra stays with her own mother in Kenya somewhere near Mombasa.
