Varun Dhawan has given Hindi cinema’s ongoing conversation about fatherhood a playful new moment, telling Koffee With Karan Season 9 that Ranbir Kapoor’s parenting can make him feel “ashamed.”
The remark arrived in an episode that paired Dhawan with Janhvi Kapoor. Host Karan Johar noted that the three actors launched by Student of the Year—Dhawan, Alia Bhatt and Sidharth Malhotra—have all become parents in recent years. Dhawan reflected on that shift, and on the warmth among the former co-stars.
Praise with a pause
Dhawan did not hold back about Kapoor. He described him as an “amazing” father to Raha, then added the lighter confession: “I am also good but Lara and me get into a lot of fights!”
The actor’s tone kept the moment from becoming too earnest, but the comparison reveals something about how this generation of stars talks about parenting. The measure of being a good father, in Dhawan’s telling, is not just showing up—it is surviving the daily negotiations at home.
- Dhawan and Natasha Dalal welcomed Lara, now two, as their first child.
- Kapoor and Alia Bhatt married in April 2022 and welcomed Raha in November 2022.
- Raha made her first public appearance with her parents on Christmas 2023.
The Michael Jackson standoff
Dhawan located the tension in his own home in a very specific argument. Lara, he said, keeps returning to one Michael Jackson song. He wants her to explore more of the singer’s catalogue; she wants the same track on repeat.
It is a small domestic story, but that is exactly why it travels. Most parents can recognise a child’s single-song obsession. Hearing a Hindi film star describe the same loop makes the larger point without needing to spell it out: parenting is built from small recurring conflicts, not just milestone moments.
Why it matters
For readers who track Hindi cinema’s leading actors closely, the exchange is a marker of a generational change. Student of the Year released in 2012 and introduced a trio who became central to the industry. Dhawan recalled that Bhatt had already said during the shoot that she wanted to be a mother. More than a decade later, the film’s leads are now navigating parenthood in public, each with a different degree of visibility.
Kapoor and Bhatt kept Raha away from cameras in her early months before introducing her to the public in late 2023. Dhawan, by contrast, has spoken about Lara in a looser register, including this very fight over music. Both approaches show the same underlying calculation: Hindi film stars now treat their children as private people, but use the texture of family life to stay legible to audiences.
Source: News18
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