A day after receiving the Best Actor honour for Chandu Champion, Kartik Aaryan laid the trophy before Mumbai's most famous Ganpati and thanked Bappa for the moment.
Kartik Aaryan didn't wait long to share his biggest professional moment with his faith. A day after picking up his first National Award, the actor turned up at Lalbaugcha Raja in Mumbai on Wednesday, trophy in hand, dressed simply in a kurta.
He bowed before the idol, set the award down at Ganpati's feet, and stood there for a moment few actors get to have twice. Later he posted a photo from the visit with a caption that read, "My Sukh-karta dukh-harta. Blessed beyond words. Thank you bappa!!"
The award itself has been a long time coming. Kartik won the National Award for Best Actor for playing Murlikant Petkar, India's first Paralympic gold medallist, in Kabir Khan's Chandu Champion. He shares the honour with Mammootty, recognised for Bramayugam, so this year's Best Actor category has two names on it rather than one.
Chandu Champion itself didn't set the box office alight when it released in 2024. That's not news to anyone who tracked its run. But Kartik's performance was the one thing critics and audiences agreed on even when the film's numbers didn't cooperate, and the National Award has now made that consensus official. The cast around him included Vijay Raaz, Bhuvan Arora, Yashpal Sharma and Rajpal Yadav.
Kartik has been fairly open about what the win means to him. In an earlier post reflecting on the announcement, he wrote about looking back at "that mumma's boy from Gwalior who dared to dream of becoming an actor," in a setting where such dreams don't usually get taken seriously. He called the film's journey painful and the result "as sweet as rasmalai," thanking Kabir Khan and producer Sajid Nadiadwala for trusting him with a role built around a real person's life. He also said he wanted every Paralympian, and everyone chasing a dream against long odds, to feel this win belonged to them too.
That's two festive stops for Kartik this Ganesh Chaturthi season, if you count the one he marked in the UK earlier, where he said he was miles from home but never away from Bappa. This one, though, came with company he's never had at a pandal before.
As for what's next, Kartik moves from a biographical sports drama to something considerably lighter. He's set to play an icchadhari naag in Naagzilla, a fantasy comedy directed by Mrighdeep Singh Lamba for Dharma Productions and Mahaveer Jain Films. The film is currently dated for February 12, 2027, which gives audiences a fair bit of time to wonder how an actor fresh off a National Award ends up playing a shapeshifting snake next.
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