Rakhi Kumari and her cousin grew up together in Harla, a village in the Jamui district of Bihar. They had been best friends since childhood, the kind who told each other everything, until their friendship turned into something else.
To marry according to the traditional Hindu rite, they needed to be a man and a woman. So Rakhi traveled to a clinic in Delhi and underwent gender reassignment surgery that cost around 800,000 rupees, nearly 9,600 dollars. Six months later, she returned as Rahul.
On May 31, they married at the Pateshwarnath temple, completing the seven ritual rounds and exchanging garlands in front of the entire community. Police reviewed the case after the video went viral and reached a simple conclusion: they are two adults who freely chose whom to love, and that is not a crime.