Rakul Preet Singh on the allure of authenticity

For Rakul Preet Singh, individuality matters just as much in a marriage as a couple’s collective identity. While she feels blessed about her two-year-old marriage to “best friend” Jackky Bhagnani, she challenges the common yet debatable conception that love completes a person.

“I’m a complete person, you’re a complete person,” Rakul recalls having told Jackky on their first date. “I’m happy, you’re happy, and we’re happier together.” Not other halves. Not better halves. But two complete people coming together in harmony, well aware of who they inherently are.

“If you’ve paid attention to your personal growth and joy, independent of external factors, it can lead to a committed, joyful relationship.”

“I don’t think a relationship changes the way you approach personal growth. You’ll be happy if you understand that nobody else can fill the void you may feel. Once you accept the crux of that tenet, every external connection becomes smoother and effortless.”

Here and now 

In an age driven by the stifling pressures of likes, views, and follower counts — where “simple” has become the persecuted antidote of “taste economies” — people describing their relationships as “uncomplicated” are few and far between.

Particularly in the Hindi film industry, which thrives on the commercialisation of manufactured complexity, relations that don’t feed on narrative arcs and social performance ironically become pleasantly surprising for their originality. Rakul uses this lexicon to describe her equation with Jackky.

“We have really burdened the word ‘marriage,’” she laughs. “It’s not that complicated. If you’re uncomplicated as a person, everything around you becomes just that.”

As mundane as the philosophy may sound, we realise that Rakul may simply be chalking out a new sense of aspiration for her generation by choosing to view each aspect of her life — career, marriage, and even makeup-free days — with graceful ease. Somewhere along the way, she decided not to make things harder than they are.

“We don’t think about the future; we live in the present. If you enjoy that, your future will truly be beautiful,” she says on navigating the everyday dynamics of a marriage. “The ordinary moments of joy and laughter are the most special.”

Preserving her privacy 
 

“For me, companionship has always been about finding an effortless middle ground. It’s about sharing responsibilities and working on yourself and your relationship every single day” Rakul’s metric for authenticity lies more in protecting her relationship from the public gaze rather than putting up a performance online. Shunning external validation, the actor believes that the purity of emotions is felt and understood only by the people involved.

“We are on social media because it’s part of our business. We neither want to share beyond that, nor do we need anyone’s approval. We know our reality,” she shrugs, certain that she won’t let her marriage become fodder for the algorithm.  

Sweet nothings 
 

This instinct to protect their personal boundaries also extends to how she and Jackky handle ambition. While both have demanding, entrepreneurial professional lives, their non-negotiable rituals to keep the romance alive make it easy for them to make time for each other without compromise.

“We’re each other’s biggest cheerleaders. We’re always rooting for each other to do better,” she admits. “You can actually be a supportive partner if you decide to just be present and listen!”

So, every day, right before bedtime, Rakul and Jackky simply chat. “It doesn’t have to be a serious conversation. It’s just being informed about one another,” she says with a welcome candour.

While such moments may appear visibly small against the dramatic standards of modern-day romance, they reflect how mutual admiration characterises their bond.

“It’s more about emotional presence than physical. I think just being there for one another is also an art.”

When their chock-a-block schedules allow the career-focussed husband and wife to be together in the same city at the same time, both ensure it is a no-phone zone, where they “just laugh and share what our day looked like… Sometimes even dream together.”

Dabbling in diversity 

As the conversation veers towards her work, Rakul treats our curiosity about her favourite role like a trick question.

“I can’t pick one!” she attempts to evade. “It’s been a long journey. Every film is special and teaches you something.”

It’s a fair response from an actor who has spent nearly two decades in cinema, refusing to cautiously stick to one lane. This appetite for experimenting with genres drew her to take on the character of Shurpanakha in Nitesh Tiwari’s upcoming magnum opus Ramayana.

“There’s not much we know about her, even though she triggered the incidents that finally led to the war,” she shares. “There was just so much to explore with this role.”

Given her portryal of a condom tester in Chhatriwali and a medical professional in Doctor G dealing with gender biases, Rakul’s choice to play Shurpanakha is unsurprising. Evidently, she likes to keep things unconventional, to say the least.

Anxious but excited about the audience’s reaction towards her performance, Rakul has a clear idea of the kind of genres she’d love to explore: “I haven’t done an out-and-out love story yet, or a heart-wrenching one... Perhaps a historical drama, too, and even an action film!”

Although she may have left her fresher status far behind, Rakul continues to talk about her career like a debutante — with enthusiastic charm and a sense of anticipation that’s mostly only seen in artistes starting out.

For those following every aspect of her life — her work, marriage, personal growth — she’s in no haste to “arrive” anywhere, patiently embracing her story as it evolves. 

Photographed by Tejas Nerurkar

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