newsletter issue 372

It’s been a busy year for Rakhi—and a confounding one for those of us who try to keep track of her. In June, she confirmed her conversion to Islam because she married “that donkey”, referring to her marriage to Adil Khan Durrani in 2022. She tells me that she still follows the faith but no longer uses the name Fatima. “People search for love. I have spent my whole life searching for god. Love has always betrayed me, but god has saved me. I’ve finally found him in the skies,” Rakhi tells me of her relationship with her faith. “I believe in the aasmaani khuda. I hate idols or any form of god that humans think they can make. God makes us, we cannot make god.”

Last December, Shobhaa De called Rakhi her ‘Woman of the Year’ for her fusillade of bon mots. Her “Awaaz neeche, bees kadam peeche” has entered the canon of female lexicon and isn’t going anywhere. On one hand she lives in a shifting-sands, reality-is-what-you-want-it-to-be world. On the other, she’s a feminist and gay icon for the youth. Which one rings true? Read her story on The Nod.