Kajol
Kajol Mukherjee Devgan, known mononymously as Kajol, is an Indian actress who appears in Hindi films. Described in the media as one of the most successful actresses of Hindi cinema, she is the recipient of numerous accolades including seven Filmfare Awards. In 2011, Kajol received Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award by the Government of India.
The daughter of Tanuja and Shomu Mukherjee, Kajol made her acting debut with Bekhudi while still in school. She subsequently quit her studies, and had commercial successes in Baazigar, and Yeh Dillagi. Starring roles in the top-grossing romances Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai established her as a leading star in the 1990s and earned her two Filmfare Awards for Best Actress. She also gained critical appreciation for playing a psychopathic killer in Gupt: The Hidden Truth and an avenger in Dushman.
After starring in the family drama Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, which won her a third Filmfare Award, Kajol took a sabbatical from full-time acting and worked infrequently over the next decades. She won two more Best Actress awards at Filmfare for starring in the romantic thriller Fanaa and the drama My Name Is Khan. Her highest-grossing releases came with the comedy Dilwale and the period film Tanhaji. She has since starred in the streaming projects Tribhanga, The Trial, and Do Patti.
In addition to acting in films, Kajol is a social activist and noted for her work with widows and children. She has featured as a talent judge for the reality show Rock-N-Roll Family in 2008, and holds a managerial position at Devgn Entertainment and Software Ltd. Kajol has been married to the actor and filmmaker Ajay Devgn since 1999, with whom she has two children.
Early life and background
Kajol was born in Bombay on 5 August 1974. Her mother, Tanuja, is an actress, while her father Shomu Mukherjee, was a film director and producer. Her younger sister, Tanishaa, is also an actress. Her maternal aunt was actress Nutan. Her maternal grandmother, Shobhna Samarth, and great-grandmother, Rattan Bai, were both involved in Hindi cinema. Her paternal uncles, Joy Mukherjee and Deb Mukherjee, were film actors, while her paternal and maternal grandfathers, Sashadhar Mukherjee and Kumarsen Samarth, respectively, were filmmakers. Kajol's cousins Rani Mukerji, Sharbani Mukherjee, and Mohnish Bahl are also actors; whereas Ayan Mukerji is a director.File:Kajol, Tanuja, Tanisha Mukherjee at Esha Deol's wedding reception 12.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|alt=Kajol and Tanuja with their mother Tanuja.|Kajol with her mother Tanuja and sister Tanishaa at actress Esha Deol's wedding reception in 2012. Kajol said that Tanuja was her inspiration to be an actress.
Kajol describes herself as being mischievous, stubborn, and impulsive at a young age. Her parents separated when she was young, but Kajol was unaffected by it since the matter was never discussed at home. Kajol was looked after by her maternal grandmother, who "never let me feel that my mother was away and working". According to Kajol, her mother inculcated a sense of independence in her since she was young. Growing up between two separate cultures, she inherited her "Maharashtrian pragmatism" from her mother and her "Bengali temperament" from her father. As part of tradition, along with the Mukherjee family, Kajol, a practising Hindu, celebrates the Durga Puja festival in the suburban neighbourhood of Santacruz annually.
Kajol was educated at St. Joseph's Convent School, Panchgani. Apart from her studies, she participated in extra-curricular activities, such as dancing. It was in school that she began to form an active interest in reading fiction, as it helped her "through the bad moments" in her life. In the early 1990s, Tanuja tried to direct a film to launch her as an actress, but it was shelved after a few days of shooting. At sixteen, Kajol began work on Bekhudi, which according to her was a "big dose of luck"; she was cast by him when she visited the studio of the photographer Gautam Rajadhyaksha, who also wrote the film's screenplay. She intended to return to school after shooting during her two-months summer vacation but eventually dropped out to pursue a full-time career in film—though she later regretted the decision.
Film career
Early work (1992–1994)
Kajol made her acting debut at age seventeen in the 1992 romantic drama Bekhudi alongside another debutant, Kamal Sadanah, and her mother Tanuja. Kajol played Radhika, who falls in love with Sadanah's character against her parents' disapproval. The film turned out to be a box office flop, but Kajol's performance gained positive notice. The following year, she was cast in Abbas–Mustan's crime thriller Baazigar, the fourth-highest-grossing film of the year with revenues of. Co-starring Shah Rukh Khan and Shilpa Shetty, the film saw Kajol in the role of Priya Chopra, a young woman who falls in love with her sister's murderer, unaware of his identity. Kajol's performance in the film drew critical attention.In 1994, Kajol appeared in Udhaar Ki Zindagi as an orphaned girl who visits her estranged grandparents. It failed to do well at the box office, however, Kajol was named the Best Actress by the Bengal Film Journalists' Association. The film was an emotionally draining experience for Kajol, and she later maintained that it had affected her so deeply that after shooting ended, she was on the verge of a crisis. Consequently, she made a deliberate decision to sign up lighter films in which she would have roles of minimal importance and no intense dramatic efforts, including Hulchul, Gundaraj, and Karan Arjun—all released a year later.
She gained wider public recognition for her role in Yeh Dillagi, a romance produced by Yash Raj Films and based on the 1953 American play Sabrina Fair. She starred as Sapna, a chauffeur's daughter who becomes a model and catches the interest of the two sons of her father's employers. A financial success, Yeh Dillagi proved to be a breakthrough for Kajol, earning her a first Best Actress nomination at the annual Filmfare Awards. The Indian Express took note of her believable performance, and Screen concluded that Yeh Dillagi had changed her screen persona from a girl next door to a beauty extraordinaire.
Established actress (1995–1998)
In 1995, Kajol had two major commercial successes: Karan Arjun and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. The former is an action film by Rakesh Roshan, based on the concept of reincarnation, and it offered her the small part of Sonia Saxena Singh. She explained her minor role in the film, saying that she wanted to be in an ornamental role and admitting she had nothing to do in the film except be glamorous. The film emerged as the second-highest-grossing film of the year in India. Kajol's next releases—Taaqat, Hulchul and Gundaraj—underperformed at the box office; the latter two were her earliest collaborations with her future-husband, Ajay Devgn, and trade analysts linked the failure to their chemistry.In Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, Kajol's final 1995 release, she and Shah Rukh Khan starred as non-resident Indians from London who fall in love during a trip across Europe and reunite in India to persuade her conservative father to call off her upcoming arranged marriage. Kajol spoke of her attachment to the project and her full emotional involvement with her character, Simran. One of the most successful films of all-time in India, it has been continuously running in Mumbai and, having surpassed 1000 weeks of screening in 2014, became the longest-running Indian film ever. Equally popular with critics, the film earned ten Filmfare Awards, including a first Best Actress for Kajol. It has been voted one of the best films ever made in polls by the British Film Institute. Raja Sen from Rediff.com thought Kajol was well-cast as Simran, arguing that "the real-as-life actress bringing warmth and credulity to the initially prudish and reluctant Simran". 1996 saw her in the poorly received action film Bambai Ka Babu.
In 1997, Kajol's portrayal of Isha Diwan, an obsessive lover turned psychopathic serial killer, in Gupt: The Hidden Truth, was labelled by critics a turning point. The director Rajiv Rai said that he "tapped the versatile artistry in Kajol", commending her for the finesse she brought to the part. The suspense thriller, also starring Bobby Deol and Manisha Koirala, was a mainstream success. India Today noted Kajol for outpacing her co-stars, and The Times of India wrote in 2016 that she was "probably the first to have broken her goody-two-shoes image". In 2002, Rediff.com included her performance in its listing of best villain performances. Kajol eventually became the first female actor to be nominated for and win the Filmfare Award for Best Performance in a Negative Role. In later years, Kajol said she accepted the part to avoid typecasting and expressed her desire to play more roles of the type.
Following a leading role in the reincarnation-based film Hameshaa, Kajol replaced Madhuri Dixit to play the lead opposite Prabhu Deva and Arvind Swamy in Rajiv Menon's Tamil-language romantic musical Minsara Kanavu. Kajol found dancing alongside Deva difficult and it took her dozens of retakes and rehearsals to get the steps right. She played Priya Amalraj, a convent student who aspires to become a nun, and her voice was dubbed by actress Revathi. The Indian Express reviewed: "Kajol is full of beans and fits into her character with commendable ease. Hers is perhaps one of the most expressive faces of the present". While the original version was embraced by audiences, the Hindi-dubbed version of the film failed commercially. Her next release was Indra Kumar's comedy-drama Ishq, alongside Aamir Khan, Juhi Chawla and Ajay Devgn. A commercial success, the film won critical praise for the performances of the four leads.
File:Rani Mukerji, Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol at the 20 years celebration of ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|left|alt=Rani Mukerji, Shah Rukh Khan, and Kajol pose for the camera.|Kajol with Rani Mukerji and Shah Rukh Khan at an event for Kuch Kuch Hota Hai in 2018
In 1998, Kajol reinforced her status as a leading actress of Hindi cinema by featuring in the three highest-grossing productions of the year: Pyaar Kiya To Darna Kya, Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai; all of which were nominated for the Filmfare Award for Best Film, with the lattermost winning it. Pyaar Kiya To Darna Kya, where she played a naïve village girl, released first and won her positive feedback. She next played twin sisters, Sonia and Naina, in Dushman. Revolving around Naina's quest to avenge the murder of Sonia, the film saw Kajol in one of her best-reviewed performances. Having initially refused the offer due to her lack of comfort shooting the rape scene, she finally accepted it on the condition that a body-double be used in it. The film won her the Screen Award for Best Actress. Suparn Verma noted her for being in "superb form" in both roles.
Anees Bazmee's romantic comedy Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha, a remake of the 1995 American film French Kiss, followed. She played the comic role of Sanjana, a clumsy woman who travels from Paris to India in search of her philandering fiancé, but falls for another man. The film became a hit and fetched Kajol another Best Actress nomination at Filmfare that year. Deepa Deosthalee from The Indian Express called Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha "Kajol's film all the way" and commended her presence that made the film to be worth-watching; Khalid Mohamed referred to her as "the show's super-saving grace. Bubbly and spontaneous as ever, hers is a perfectly balanced performance, rescuing even the loudest scenes from going over the top."
The biggest success of 1998 for Kajol was her final release of that year, Karan Johar's directorial debut, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. The first Indian feature to be shot in Scotland, it emerged as an all-time blockbuster in both India and overseas. Kajol played Anjali Sharma, a tomboyish college student who is secretly in love with her best friend from college. The story follows their renewed encounter years later when he is widowed and she has transformed her appearance and is already engaged to marry someone else. Critics considered Kajol's performance bold and convincing, despite an otherwise unrealistic plot. Nikhat Kazmi wrote that she is "almost mesmeric" in the part. She won her second Best Actress award at the 44th Filmfare Awards and first Zee Cine Award for Best Actor – Female for her work. Filmfare included Kajol's performances in both Dushman and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai in its listing of Indian cinema's "80 Most Iconic performances". In a year-end column, The Tribune Madhur Mittal reported that Kajol had "emerged as the consummate heroine with her excellent emoting and sensational screen presence in each portrayal".