Kajol takes husband’s name for the first time

Rohit Shetty’s Dilwale has had two interesting developments already. For the first time Kajol has taken her husband’s surname. After being married to Ajay Devgn for 16 years, she is now officially Kajol Devgn in Dilwale. Incidentally, 27 years ago Ajay had done a film that had the same title.

“All these years, Kajol never used her father’s surname Mukherjee, nor her mother’s surname Samarth.” Kajol’s decision to add Devgn to her name is part of a growing trend among heroines to flaunt their marital status — case in point Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Kareena Kapoor Khan. We hear Vidya Balan too is contemplating doing the same.

Coming back to Dilwale, the second development that has happened is that Kajol’s name appears after Shah Rukh’s in the credits. That’s noteworthy, because in 2014, King Khan had announced that his leading lady’s name would appear before his own. Even in Chennai Express and Happy New Year, Deepika Padukone’s name appeared before SRK’s. But now Dilwale carries Kajol’s name after Shah Rukh’s, apparently by mutual consent.

Says a source, “In their fans’ subconscious the two of them are‘Shah Rukh and Kajol’ in that order. Why mess with audiences’ perceptions ”