Name: Raakhee Gulzar. Status: Still alive.

We were at a special screening of Akshay Kumar’s Sarfira when there was a news flash on mobile phones. “Veteran actress Raakhee Gulzar Dead”.

A quick message to Meghna (Bosky) Gulzar and the fake alert was promptly quelled, at least with the limited media inside Sunny Super Sound, Sunny Deol’s 77-seat theatre.

“This is some rubbish doing the rounds. God’s grace,” Meghna responded while Akshay Kumar reprised Captain Gopinath’s struggle to make Air Deccan take off on the screen before us.

I’m told that when Bosky first heard it, tears had sprung to her eyes. Raakhee herself was amused. “Still alive,” she texted. “Speak to you in the morning. Love.”

The humour continued when she later narrated how son-in-law Govind Sandhu had dropped in to check on her. Raakhee had no idea that she was “dead”. “Govind rang the bell when I was resting in the afternoon,” she recounted with a chuckle. “I’m not on social media and had no clue what was happening... When Govind came to check on me and I opened the door, he typically stood there and joked, “Bhoot, bhoot.”

Once Raakhee was apprised of her “status”, she wondered, “It’s so strange. I believe it was on YouTube. What do YouTubers get when they put out stories like this? Do they get paid, make money on it? I don’t even know from where this has sprung.”

The “news” spread so far and wide that even Bosky’s producers held their breath and kept the team on standby in case they had to pitch in and help with “arrangements”. “The producers of the last Bengali film I did also called up from Calcutta wondering if all was well with me. Phone calls have been coming from all over,” Raakhee chronicled.

Those who found Raakhee alive and well put out another false story. That she was in her Panvel farm.

“I’m here in my apartment in Bandra,” Raakhee corrected this bit of information too. “I don’t live on my farm (on the outskirts of Mumbai near Karnala bird sanctuary).”

Raakhee thought aloud, “Now I wonder what made me build such a big mansion there. I’d made it for a large family when I had my parents, my brother, his family. They are no more and nobody lives there. Bosky and Govind too have made their own beautiful place in Karjat and that’s where they go.”

Raakhee further explained, “I avoid going to the farm during the monsoon and even when I do go, I don’t stay overnight. I go during the day and come away.” Besides a Nepali caretaker whose kids have grown up there, the animal lover has seven dogs, including a wild one who initially went there only for the food and became a part of the pack. The seven also pitch in to protect her property.

“No pedigrees,” Raakhee commented. “And the seven attack as a pack. When I take someone with me, I always tell them, ‘Wait until I get down from the car.’ It’s only after I’ve met the pack that the dogs will be okay with whoever accompanies me.”

In short, all’s well. Bosky, Govind and son Samay are off for an African safari, another indication that mom is fine.

Raakhee signed off on another witty note over the mobile phone. “Once these slushy rains are over, we’ll meet. We’ll meet while I’m still alive.”

PS: The film industry believes that such false stories add to the life of the actor. Way back in 2012, at Mona Kapoor’s last birthday dinner hosted by Shabana Azmi, some guests had gone “Cluck-cluck, how sad” at “news” of Dilip Kumar’s death. He died so frequently that for years, wherever I travelled, I’d carry a long obit on him on a pen drive, ready to be e-mailed to the editor at short notice.

Dilip Kumar died in 2021 at age 98.

Raakhee is only 76.