A few months ago, Monalisa Bhosle was one of the most recognisable faces on the internet. Videos of the young woman selling rudraksha beads at the Prayagraj Kumbh Mela had made her a viral sensation. Soon afterwards came modelling assignments, film offers, and then a wedding in Kerala to a Muslim man that spiralled into one of the country's most closely watched legal and political controversies.
Since then, her family’s claim that she was a minor has triggered investigations across two states, an abduction case against her Uttar Pradesh-based husband Farman Khan, intervention by the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST), and months of political sparring over what the marriage represents.
Amid all this, Monalisa herself has remained largely unheard.
Days after the Kerala High Court directed police to provide her protection following her allegation that she was facing threats to her life, Monalisa agreed to speak to TNM. Over the course of the conversation, she and her husband Farman spoke about the legal battle over her age, the money she says she has lost, why she fears returning to Madhya Pradesh, and how, in her view, the person at the centre of the controversy has had the least say in it.
‘I don't want to go back to Madhya Pradesh’
When Madhya Pradesh Police recently contacted Monalisa over a video call, she said she believed they simply wanted to record her statement. “But they told me what they wanted was not my statement. They wanted to bring me to Madhya Pradesh.”
Monalisa said she refused. “I told them I don't want to come to Madhya Pradesh. My life is in danger there, and all of you know this.”
During the conversation, Farman also alleged that the couple had received information that there were plans to kill him in an “encounter” if he returned to Madhya Pradesh. Both Monalisa and Farman clarified that this had not been communicated to them directly by the police but was something they had learnt from other people. TNM could not independently verify the allegation.
On June 20, the Kerala High Court had directed the police to provide protection to Monalisa after she approached the court alleging threats to her life. She also produced screenshots of the threatening messages she said she had received.
She alleged that the couple have continued receiving threats ever since the marriage. “We keep getting threats that we'll be killed, chopped up, or shot if we come to Madhya Pradesh,” she alleged.
Asked whether the threats came over phone calls or messages, she replied, “Everything. Calls, messages, everything.” She also said videos had surfaced online showing people beating photographs of the couple with slippers.
“They say I married a terrorist,” she said. “He isn't an animal. He's a human being too.”
“For me, all religions are equal. I don't understand this Hindu-Muslim divide,” she added.
Farman also alleged that despite obtaining interim protection from the Kerala High Court, the couple continued to feel surveilled. "We have police protection because our lives are under threat," he said. Monalisa added that she remained grateful for the protection granted by the Kerala High Court.
‘I was born at home, hospital records fake’
For months, almost every legal and political development in Monalisa's case revolved around one question: how old is she?
Kerala authorities accepted documents showing her date of birth as January 1, 2008, when she married Farman in March this year. The NCST inquiry, however, later relied on hospital records from Madhya Pradesh indicating she was born on December 30, 2009.
Monalisa, however, insisted those records belong to her younger brother. “I was born at home,” she said. “My parents have told me this many times. All three of my younger siblings were born in a hospital, but I was born at home.”
According to her, she raised this during her recent interaction with Madhya Pradesh Police over phone. “I told them to check my brother's documents too. I told them to verify his Aadhaar card,” she said. “But they said they were only concerned with me.”
The couple alleged that investigators were relying on records that actually belonged to Monalisa's younger brother Ajaysingh Bhosle. “They are showing my brother's birth certificate and saying it is mine,” Monalisa alleged.
TNM had earlier reported that records reviewed from the Madhya Pradesh government's Samagra portal showed requests submitted by Monalisa's family to alter details of multiple family members months before she met Farman. The records showed Monalisa's date of birth being changed from January 1, 2009 to January 1, 2008, while her younger brother Ajaysingh’s was changed from January 1, 2008 to September 8, 2009 — a date significantly closer to the December 30, 2009 birth date later reflected in the hospital register relied upon by the NCST. The Samagra records later disappeared from public view.
Read our detailed investigation here:
Speaking to TNM, Monalisa also questioned why her own birth certificate carrying her January 1, 2008 date of birth was cancelled shortly after the wedding, without her knowledge. “They cancelled it without asking me anything. I wasn't given any notice,” she said. “Why was it cancelled 10 days after my wedding? They should have asked me once.” The couple have challenged the cancellation before the Madhya Pradesh High Court.
Farman, who was seated beside her throughout the interview, argued that Monalisa's official records consistently reflected the same date of birth. "Her Aadhaar card is nearly 10 years old," he said. "She has Aadhaar, PAN, voter ID, Samagra ID, and bank records. All of them show the same birth year (January 1, 2008). Even in the joint bank account with her father, the same date of birth is recorded. If all these documents are fake, then where are the original documents they say exist?" TNM had earlier verified that Monalisa’s Aadhaar card, which carried January 1, 2008, as her date of birth, was issued in 2015.
“If there was any problem with my documents, why did no one, including my family, raise it then?” she asked.
‘My family knew about us’
Monalisa also challenged the suggestion that she had eloped without her family's knowledge or was “abducted” by Farman, as the case against him suggested.
According to her, both her parents knew about her relationship with Farman well before the wedding. She said she had never hidden it from her mother, who initially accepted the relationship.
“I told my mother everything,” Monalisa said. “She knew I loved him.”
She added that her mother was happy when she informed her of Farman, and even distributed sweets after Farman bought a motorcycle. "If she really had a problem, she should have stopped me then."
Her father, she said, also knew about the relationship, but wanted her to return to Madhya Pradesh and marry her aunt's son instead. “He told me to come back and marry my bua's son. I asked him why he was forcing me against my wishes.”
She said Farman had initially been reluctant to marry immediately, urging her instead to focus on her career. “He kept refusing. He told me we shouldn't marry now.” Monalisa said she then told him that she would die by suicide if she was forced back home.
According to her, the three of them — Monalisa, Farman, and her father — went together to the Thampanoor police station before the wedding.
There, she said, Kerala Police examined the documents produced before allowing her to leave with Farman. “My Aadhaar card and PAN card were with my father, so the police took them from him. I also showed them a photograph of my birth certificate on my phone.”
She said officers spent considerable time verifying the documents before informing her that, according to the records before them, she was “18 years and three months” old.
“They asked me whether I wanted to go with my father or with Farman. They told me it was entirely my choice. I said I wanted to go with Farman.”
According to Monalisa, her father returned to Madhya Pradesh that evening while she remained in Kerala. She questioned why, if her father believed she was a minor, he did not raise that objection before the Kerala police at the time.
“If I was really under 18, why did they let me stay?” she said. “The law is for everyone. My father could have told the police I was a minor.”
Days later, however, Monalisa's father filed a complaint in Madhya Pradesh, leading to the registration of an FIR alleging that Farman had abducted her and that she had been underage at the time of the wedding.
Monalisa also said that despite the legal battle that followed, her mother continues to speak to her over the phone. “My mother tells me she wasn't responsible for all this,” she said.
Farman, meanwhile, alleged that political interests had later influenced the family's position.
Monalisa also suggested that the conversations around her marriage changed after it began attracting political attention. She recalled people invoking The Kerala Story while trying to dissuade her from the relationship.
"People kept talking about The Kerala Story. I don't even know what The Kerala Story is," she said. For context, The Kerala Story is a controversial film that portrayed the state as a site of organised religious radicalisation.
‘I have nothing except my clothes’
If the legal battle weighed on Monalisa, so did the practical realities that followed. “I have nothing except the clothes I'm wearing,” she said.
Monalisa alleged that after the controversy began, her parents withdrew the money she had earned and that she no longer has access to her bank accounts.
“I had two bank accounts,” she said. “One was a joint account with my father, and the other was in my own name. But my family had all my ATM cards and documents.” She also pointed out that the accounts themselves had been opened after she turned 18.
Asked how the couple were managing their day-to-day expenses, Monalisa said they were surviving largely with the help of their advocate and a handful of well-wishers. "I have nothing left. Our advocate helps us. Sometimes she arranges food and basic necessities," she said. "We don't even have money to hire a lawyer."
Farman said that several lawyers were representing them without charging fees because they believed in their case.
The months-long controversy, Monalisa added, had left both of them emotionally exhausted, stating that there were moments when she felt overwhelmed by everything that had happened.
‘Why only us?’
Throughout the interview, Monalisa kept returning to the same question. “Many Hindu-Muslim couples get married,” she said. “People with money and influence marry and nobody questions them. But when poor people like us do it, everyone feels they have the right to insult us.”
She paused before adding, “I never thought getting married would be considered such a huge crime.”
Monalisa also referred to the complaint she has filed against filmmaker Sanoj Mishra, alleging sexual misconduct during the making of a film. "We filed a case against him because he touched me inappropriately," she said. "He is roaming around freely, making videos and saying whatever he wants (about me). Nobody is taking action against him."
"But people are after our lives as though we committed some terrible crime by getting married."
Asked whether the attention she received after going viral at the Kumbh Mela had ultimately changed her life for the better or worse, Monalisa paused before replying.
“What can I say? Life has become terrible now.”
She said she continues to receive film offers but has been unable to think about work while navigating the legal cases surrounding the marriage.
“Offers are coming,” she said. “But how can I accept them? We are under so much stress. There is a kidnapping case against my husband.”
Asked what she plans to do now, Monalisa said she does not want to return to Madhya Pradesh. "They can only take my dead body there," she said.
She said she wanted to remain in Kerala, where she believed she would be safer.
"I haven't seen discrimination here between Hindus and Muslims," she said. "For me, Kerala feels like heaven."
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