Himesh Mankad (MUMBAI MIRROR; September 4, 2019)

After wrapping up a major chunk of his next, the horror comedy Laxmmi Bomb, Akshay Kumar will bring in his 52nd birthday on September 9 in London. He will be flying out this weekend with wife Twinkle and kids Aarav and Nitara.

The actor was in London recently with his mother Aruna Bhatia and posted a picture of himself wheeling her around the Queen’s City, pointing out that no matter how busy you are with life and growing up, it’s important not to forget that your parents are growing old too and spend some time with them while you can.

Talking about the upcoming birthday, a source close to the actor informed, “It will be a lowkey celebration for the Kumars. The idea is to spend quality time with the entire family.”

Last year, Akshay had turned 51 with a family dinner in Mumbai. Among the guests was friend and Housefull 4 co-star Bobby Deol. In 2017, he had vacationed in the snow-capped mountains of Switzerland for four days. This year too, the family break will last for less than a week, as the birthday boy is scheduled to kick off a film in Mumbai after which he will start promoting Sajid Nadiadwala’s Housefull 4, which opens this Diwali. The Farhad Samji-directed reincarnation comedy features Akshay in two avatars. In the present day, he is a barber and in the Bahubali era, he plays a character who is bald and sports a handlebar moustache.

For these leading men, whose older kids have left/are leaving the nest, nothing spells throwback as well as reliving parenthood after a gap
Nishi Tiwari (MUMBAI MIRROR; January 16, 2019)

Shah Rukh Khan
SRK and Gauri’s youngest child, AbRam, was the original paparazzi darling before his retreat into privacy coincided with Taimur Ali Khan’s debut in the public domain. Now, he is being credited for accentuating his actor-father’s paternal instincts, especially in public. “Weekend Research: A survey has found One in Three men are just as lazy as the other Two”. We are the other two and we don’t agree mom,” SRK shared cheekily with the latest picture of himself with AbRam last weekend.

In 2018, he had marked Eid with another photo-op with his son, noting, “Love is always only in the eyes… here’s all of ours to you...”


Aamir Khan
With Ira and Junaid, his kids with first wife Reema Dutta all grown up, Aamir is reliving the joys of parenthood with Azad, his seven-year-old son with filmmaker-wife, Kiran Rao.

After planning an Asterix-themed birthday party, which was much talked about for the painstaking attention to detail, Aamir let his followers in on the goofy side of his world recently. For a picture of Azad perched on his shoulders as he appears deep in thought, he quipped, “Gehri soch,” suitably appending it with a smile emoji.


Saif Ali Khan
The 48-year-old actor makes up for the lack of a social media presence with rather frequent public appearances with his youngest son, Taimur Ali Khan. Would it be too cheeky, or too far off the mark to say that his cherubic toddler has been instrumental in raising his equity with the paparazzi by several notches?

Given Saif’s sense of humour and the fact that it was he, who, while on a chat show, brought up the premium prices Taimur’s pictures command in media circles, it would be safe to assume that the actor would agree.

Akshay Kumar
If the Khiladi Kumar and his witty wife Twinkle Khanna’s documentation of their daily lives are anything to go by, the former revels in keeping up little traditions with their six-year-old daughter, Nitara. The duo celebrated Makar Sankranti on Monday together. “Meet daddy’s little helper… Continuing our yearly father-daughter ritual of flying kites soaring high in the sky,” Akshay exclaimed.

On September 25 last year, he marked his li’l girl’s birthday with a heart-warming post. “My baby girl, you have given me love I didn’t know existed… Please don’t grow up just yet, I’m not ready for you to swim without me,” he had shared.

Natasha Coutinho (MUMBAI MIRROR; January 3, 2019)

New-age Bollywood twosomes are establishing gender equality early on in their households by lending both the parents’ surnames to their children. A look at the neo-hyphenate star kids in the industry:

NITARA KHANNA-BHATIA
Twinkle Khanna and Akshay Kumar christened their second child, a baby girl, Nitara, in 2012. The addition of ‘Khanna’ in the young ’un’s surname is said to be a tribute to her late maternal grandfather, Rajesh Khanna, who’d passed away in the same year.


AZAD RAO-KHAN
Aamir Khan and his filmmaker-wife Kiran Rao’s first child was born in 2011 through surrogacy. The actor had subsequently unveiled the name on the social media, adding, “I left the final choice to Kiran, and she has named him after my great-granduncle Maulana Azad, the great freedom fighter, whom the family is most proud of. Azad means free or liberated.”


RAYNA MOHAN-DATTA
Author-scriptwriter Durjoy Datta, who has penned hit shows like Sadda Haq: My Life My Choice and Kuch Rang Pyar Ke Aise Bhi, and his airhostess wife Avantika Mohan, welcomed their baby girl, in 2017. Durjoy, who thinks the naming trend is healthy, was quick to add, “When Rayna grows up, it’d be up to her to keep both surnames, just one or none.”


NIHAL PANAG-ATTARI
Former pageant queen-turned-actress Gul Panag and her commercial pilot husband Rishi Attari managed to keep their pregnancy hush-hush, but the name of their son, who was born in August 2018, is no secret. “We wanted to give Nihal a sense of an equal world right from the beginning where both his mother and father are equal partners in life—and he grows up looking at the world in that way,” Gul, when contacted, told Mirror.

MEHR DHUPIA-BEDI
Neha Dhupia and Angad Bedi, who had been friends long before their courtship and subsequent wedding, made their pregnancy public six months after tying the knot in May 2018. They debuted their daughter’s name soon after her birth in November. The new actor-father, when contacted, had said cryptically at the time that he is working “on a bigger solo setup”.