Varun Dhawan turns a year older today, but perhaps the more interesting question is not where he stands at this moment. It is where he goes from here. Because Varun is now at a fascinating stage in his career. He is no longer the young, energetic star kid trying to prove that he belongs. He is also not yet at that distant, over-curated stage where a star begins to look more like an idea than a performer. He is somewhere in between: experienced, tested, loved, trolled, successful, wounded, hungry and still capable of surprising the audience.
Varun Dhawan should weaponise his David Dhawan DNA before Bollywood forgets how to make entertainers
And that is why this birthday is a good time to say something that perhaps needs to be said more openly. Varun Dhawan should not run away from his David Dhawan DNA. He should weaponise it.
For years, being David Dhawan’s son has been seen both as Varun’s privilege and his burden. The privilege is obvious. He comes from a film family. He grew up around cinema. He understands sets, songs, comedy, rhythm, timing and the madness of mainstream Hindi filmmaking in a way that cannot be taught in a workshop. But the burden is equally real. Every time Varun embraces comedy, colour, songs, dance or massy entertainment, there is a tendency to reduce it to genetics, as if he is simply doing what comes naturally because of his surname.
But maybe that is exactly the point. Maybe what comes naturally to Varun is precisely what Bollywood is struggling to manufacture today.
David Dhawan’s cinema was never built on silence, stillness or carefully preserved aura. It was built on chaos, pace, music, confusion, humor, family appeal and a deep understanding of what the common audience wanted from a Friday night at the movies. His films did not ask the audience to admire them from a distance. They pulled the audience into madness. They made people laugh, whistle, hum songs, repeat dialogues and forget their problems for two and a half hours. That is not a small cinematic achievement. That is a language.
And Varun Dhawan is one of the few current mainstream actors who can still speak that language without looking like a tourist.
This is where his real advantage lies. Varun can dance without seeming self-conscious. He can do comedy without looking embarrassed by it. He can play to the gallery without appearing condescending. He can romance, cry, fight, overreact, underplay and surrender to the demands of a full-blown Hindi film entertainer. In an era where many stars are busy protecting their image, Varun still performs like someone who wants to win over the last row of the balcony. That instinct is rare. More importantly, it is useful.
The problem is that Bollywood, in its constant effort to look cooler and bigger, has often started looking suspicious of its own strengths. Songs are treated like marketing units. Comedy is treated like a risky zone. Family entertainers are dismissed as old-fashioned until one of them works. Stars are encouraged to be intense, silent, brooding, mysterious and premium. But Hindi cinema was never built only on aura. It was built on accessibility. It was built on stars who could enter homes, weddings, television screens, music playlists and family conversations.
That is the zone Varun can own.
This does not mean he should simply recreate the 90s. That would be lazy. It does not mean he should blindly repeat the David Dhawan-Govinda grammar either. That world belonged to its time, its audience and its rhythm. But what Varun can do is take the emotional engine of that cinema and repackage it for today. The confusion comedy can become sharper. The romance can become more contemporary. The songs can become bigger digital moments. The family drama can become more rooted. The hero can be funny without becoming foolish, vulnerable without becoming weak and massive without becoming outdated.
That is where the word weaponise becomes important. Legacy should not be treated like nostalgia alone. It should be treated like strategy. That is why the next phase matters.
With I am young so there is lovethe David Dhawan-Varun Dhawan combination carries more than just trade curiosity. It carries emotion. The fact that Varun reportedly spent two nights in the studio during the recreation of the title track also says something about his involvement and hunger. This is not just a son doing another film with his father. It is possibly a moment where one generation of Hindi film entertainment passes the baton to another.
And that baton should not be carried apologetically.
For Varun, the challenge now is not to prove that he can be different from David Dhawan’s cinema. He has already done that. The bigger challenge is to prove that he can modernize what David Dhawan represented. The colour, the madness, the music, the comedy, the family pull, the theatrical energy and these are not outdated tools. They are underused tools. In the right hands, they can still create magic.
The industry also needs this version of Varun. And Varun, when aligned with the right material, can be one of the strongest faces of that space. This is where his David Dhawan DNA becomes his edge, not his limitation. He has inherited not just a surname, but a sense of rhythm. A belief that cinema should move. A belief that the audience should not be bored. A belief that songs matter, laughter matters, mothers and fathers in the audience matter, children matter, frontbenchers matter and repeat value matters. In today’s Bollywood, that belief system is not old-fashioned. It is almost rebellious.
So yes, Varun Dhawan should experiment. He should do action. He should do intense roles. He should surprise people. He should work with new directors, new writers and new formats. But he should never be made to feel that embracing the entertainer within him is a step backward. For him, it may actually be the smartest way forward.
Because the son of David Dhawan does not have to become a copy of his father’s cinema. It can become its upgraded version. Faster, younger, slicker, more emotional, more self-aware and more in tune with today’s audience.
That is the opportunity in front of him. Not to run away from the Dhawan DNA, but to weaponise it.
And if he does that well, Varun Dhawan may not just protect his own stardom. He may end up reminding Bollywood of a genre, a grammar and a kind of hero it has been foolishly underestimating for far too long.
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