Kajol

Kajol Devgan (born Kajol Mukherjee on 5 August 1974), known simply as Kajol, is a Hindi film actress who was the highest-paid star of her era. She is admired for her natural talent and range, and has won seven Filmfare Awards. In 2011, the Indian government awarded her the Padma Shri, the country’s fourth-highest civilian honor. The daughter of actress Tanuja and director-producer Shomu Mukherjee, Kajol made her film debut in Bekhudi (1992) while still in school.

She left her studies after that and found commercial success with Baazigar (1993) and Yeh Dillagi (1994). Her starring roles in the blockbuster romances Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995) and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998) made her a top star in the 1990s and earned her two Filmfare Best Actress awards. She also earned critical praise for playing a psychopathic killer in Gupt: The Hidden Truth (1997) and an avenger in Dushman (1998). After the family drama Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001) won her a third Filmfare Award, Kajol took a break from full-time acting and worked only occasionally over the next two decades.

She won two more Filmfare Best Actress awards for the romantic thriller Fanaa (2006) and the drama My Name Is Khan (2010). Her biggest box-office hits later came with the comedy Dilwale (2015) and the period film Tanhaji (2020). More recently, she has appeared in streaming projects such as Tribhanga (2021), The Trial (2023), and Do Patti (2024). Beyond film, Kajol is a social activist focused on widows and children.

She served as a talent judge on the reality show Rock-N-Roll Family in 2008 and holds a managerial role at Devgn Entertainment and Software Ltd. She has been married to actor and filmmaker Ajay Devgn since 1999, and they have two children. Kajol Mukherjee was born in Mumbai on 5 August 1974. Her mother Tanuja is an actress; her father Shomu Mukherjee was a film director and producer. Her younger sister Tanishaa is also an actress.

Her maternal aunt was the actress Nutan. Her maternal grandmother Shobhna Samarth and great-grandmother Rattan Bai both worked in Hindi cinema. Her paternal uncles Joy Mukherjee and Deb Mukherjee were film actors, and both her paternal and maternal grandfathers—Sashadhar Mukherjee and Kumarsen Samarth—were filmmakers. Her cousins include actors Rani Mukerji, Sharbani Mukherjee, and Mohnish Bahl, and director Ayan Mukerji.

Kajol has described herself as mischievous, stubborn, and impulsive as a child. Her parents separated when she was young, but she says the split didn’t affect her because it was never discussed at home. She was raised by her maternal grandmother, who “never let me feel that my mother was away and working.” Kajol credits her mother with teaching her independence from a young age.

Growing up between two cultures, she says she inherited “Maharashtrian pragmatism” from her mother and a “Bengali temperament” from her father. A practicing Hindu, she celebrates Durga Puja every year with the Mukherjee family in the Santacruz neighborhood. She attended St. Joseph’s Convent School in Panchgani, where she took part in extracurriculars like dancing and developed a love of reading fiction, which she says helped her “through the bad moments.”

In the early 1990s, Tanuja tried to direct a film to launch her daughter’s career, but the project was shelved after a few days. At 16, Kajol began work on Bekhudi—which she calls a “big dose of luck”—after being cast during a visit to the studio of photographer Gautam Rajadhyaksha, who also wrote the film’s screenplay. She planned to return to school after shooting during summer break, but eventually dropped out to pursue acting full-time, a decision she later regretted.

Kajol made her debut at 17 in the 1992 romantic drama Bekhudi, co-starring debutant Kamal Sadanah and her mother Tanuja. She played Radhika, a young woman who falls in love against her parents’ wishes. The film flopped at the box office, but Kajol’s performance was noticed. The next year, she appeared in Abbas–Mustan’s crime thriller Baazigar (1993), the fourth-highest-grossing film of the year.

Co-starring Shah Rukh Khan and Shilpa Shetty, Kajol played Priya Chopra, a woman who unknowingly falls in love with her sister’s murderer. Her performance drew critical attention. In 1994, she starred in Udhaar Ki Zindagi as an orphaned girl visiting her estranged grandparents. The film failed commercially, but Kajol won the Bengal Film Journalists’ Association award for Best Actress (Hindi).

She found the role emotionally draining and later said it brought her to the verge of a crisis after filming ended. As a result, she deliberately chose lighter roles in films like Hulchul, Gundaraj, and Karan Arjun (all released in 1995), where she had less demanding parts. She gained wider recognition with Yeh Dillagi, a Yash Raj Films romance based on the 1953 American play Sabrina Fair.