When Kartik Aaryan pulled up his shirt, showed off his torso and flashed his Bugs Bunny smile in Tu Meri Main Tera Main Tera Tu Meri, it was a flop show. 2025’s last release also signalled a farewell of sorts to the biceps-and-steroid products that rolled out of the neighbourhood gym.
The boys who could lift weights more easily than a heavy dialogue have had their day. The arrival of Ahaan Panday shifted the axis towards pleasant, everyday-looking heroes who warm the heart. Ahaan is firmed up and fit; his mother Deanne has long been a trainer in the fitness business and the dadi he wears on his sleeve was one of the pioneers in the slimming industry of the 70s and 80s. Gyms are, therefore, not alien places for Ahaan. He is, after all, Harley-Davidson’s new ambassador, who is as swashbuckling as it can get. But under Aditya Chopra’s tutelage, he went through rigorous lessons in emoting before he became Krish Kapoor, who’ll stand with a teardrop a millimetre away from his droopy eyes as his girl with the fading memory calls him by another man’s name.
His blockbuster success may have stunned Ahaan for a while, finding himself in the same deer-caught-in-the-headlights situation that Hrithik Roshan was in 25 years ago. Between Ahaan and Hrithik, they called it the “imposter syndrome” when they’re first hit with the feeling: “Is this really happening to me?” But lately, Ahaan has begun to see the gaze as a blessing even as he preps for his next film, this time readying himself for Rambo-like action. His co-star Sharvari Wagh is already a part of YRF’s spy universe Alpha, having undergone intense training to play an ISI agent alongside Alia Bhatt.
Interestingly, the antagonist fighting Ahaan will be Aaishvary Thackeray, the newcomer Anurag Kashyap introduced in a double role in Nishaanchi. Aaishvary’s swagger is once again different from that of those who strut out of a gym and head to a film studio.
Unlike Ahaan’s blockbuster success, Agastya Nanda has made a relatively quieter entry, his first appearance in Netflix’s The Archies failing to get a rousing welcome. His next outing in Sriram Raghavan’s Ikkis may find him overshadowed by the sentimentality around Dharmendra, this being the legendary actor’s farewell film. But Agastya stands up and gets noticed as the eager, fresh face who was awarded a PVC for valour on the battlefield. Irrespective of the box-office performance of Ikkis, Agastya is here to stay in his grandpa’s world and he too falls into the mould of the new hero who has vulnerability on his face.
Rajkumar Hirani’s son Vir too has boyish charm, his father ensuring that the slim lad had it in him before proceeding to launch him. Raju sent Vir to RADA for training, watched him in the play Letters of Suresh, gained confidence in his son’s abilities and then embarked on making a web series for him. The buzz is Vir will debut on Disney Hotstar this year, a welcome addition to the shrinking list of young heroes. Like Ahaan and Agastya, Vir is also not only about shirt-off testosterone.
Apart from all four marking the transition from an outdated gym model to more sensitive-looking young men, they have something more in common. Every one of them is loaded. Ahaan lived in the beautifully appointed Pali Hill bungalow owned by the Pandays long before stardom came and survival in Mumbai was not his fear during the seven-year wait for Adi to find him the right subject. A Thackeray in Maharashtra does not require stardom for wealth or material comfort. Vir Hirani is the only child of the most successful filmmaker in the Hindi film industry today. As for Agastya, it goes beyond blessings from the Bachchans. Papa Nikhil Nanda of Escorts just bought him a plush apartment in Mumbai.
They can afford to wait for the best to come their way.
Bharathi S. Pradhan is a senior journalist and an author
