Twelve Gujarati actors are verifiably under 35 as of 29 July 2026. The youngest are Bhavya Gandhi and Darsheel Safary, both 29, followed by Yash Soni, who was nineteen when Chhello Divas opened in 2015. The group carries real jury weight: Janki Bodiwala won Best Actress in a Supporting Role at the 71st National Film Awards for Vash, and Shraddha Dangar, Denisha Ghumra and Kaushambi Bhatt each share the Special Jury Award that the 66th National Film Awards gave to the thirteen actresses of Hellaro. Malhar Thakar, born 28 June 1990, turned 36 last month and is the clearest example of who this list leaves out.
Every publication runs a young-talent list and almost none of them do the arithmetic. This one is built on a single filter that cannot be argued with: born on or after 30 July 1991, so still under 35 on the day this page was written. That sounds pedantic until you try it. Two thirds of the obvious names failed, not because they are old but because nobody has ever published when they were born.
What survives the filter is a strange and useful picture of Gujarati cinema in 2026. Three of the twelve came from Hindi television and walked into Gujarati films rather than out of them. Three of them won a National Film Award in a single ensemble before any of them had a second lead role. One of them was the most famous child actor in the country and has ended up in a Gujarati film about a Kutch bus route. The old story was that Gujarati cinema was where careers waited. Read the ages and the credits together and it is now where several of them start.
The list at a glance
| Actor | Age | Born | Breakthrough | Hardest credential |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bhavya Gandhi | 29 | 20 June 1997 | Tapu in Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah | Nine years on national television, then a Gujarati film career from scratch |
| Darsheel Safary | 29 | 9 March 1997 | Taare Zameen Par (2007) | Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor at ten years old |
| Yash Soni | 29 | 16 October 1996 | Chhello Divas (2015) | Led Chaal Jeevi Laiye!, the Gujarati record holder for six years |
| Parikshit Tamaliya | 30 | 23 June 1996 | Duniyadari (2017) | Carried Saatam Aatham (2022) as lead after five years of supporting parts |
| Siddhi Idnani | 30 | 10 January 1996 | Grand Hali (2017) | Debuted in Gujarati, then led in Telugu, Tamil and Hindi |
| Helly Shah | 30 | 7 January 1996 | Swaragini on Hindi television | Sixteen years on screen, starting at fourteen |
| Denisha Ghumra | 30 | 13 November 1995 | Hellaro (2019) | Special Jury Award, 66th National Film Awards |
| Janki Bodiwala | 30 | 30 October 1995 | Chhello Divas (2015) | Best Actress in a Supporting Role, 71st National Film Awards |
| Shraddha Dangar | 31 | 15 October 1994 | Hellaro (2019) | Special Jury Award, 66th National Film Awards |
| Devarshi Shah | 32 | 7 August 1993 | Hardik Abhinandan (2016) | Six Gujarati leads plus a Netflix Hindi credit in Kho Gaye Hum Kahan |
| Esha Kansara | 33 | 20 August 1992 | Duniyadari (2017) | A decade of Hindi television before a Gujarati lead run |
| Kaushambi Bhatt | 34 | 1 October 1991 | Hellaro (2019) | Won a National Film Award citation on her first film |
How this list was built
One hard filter, applied first. An actor qualifies only if a birth date is published in their English Wikipedia biography or its infobox, and only if that date falls on or after 30 July 1991, which makes them under 35 on 29 July 2026. Everything else follows from that. Five well-known young Gujarati leads were cut because English Wikipedia has removed their birth dates from the article under its sourcing rules for living people, leaving only stale imported values on Wikidata: Aarohi Patel, Deeksha Joshi, Vyoma Nandi, Apoorva Arora and Jinal Belani. Anveshi Jain was cut because her article gives two different birth years, 2004 in the lead and 1996 in the body, both sourced to the same Instagram post. Maira Doshi, Maulik Nayak, Smit Pandya, Netri Trivedi and Prapti Ninama have no published birth date at all. Nikkesha Rangwala qualifies on age but has a single Gujarati film credit, which is too thin for a list about a Gujarati generation. Near misses were kept out without exception: Monal Gajjar turned 35 in May 2026, Mitra Gadhavi turns 36 in September, Kinjal Rajpriya is 36, Malhar Thakar is 36 and Raunaq Kamdar is 39. Every surviving entry also needed either a free-licensed Wikimedia Commons photograph with a named photographer and licence, or an Instagram account confirmed by a live scrape with corroborating content, not a name match. Parikshit Tamaliya was almost dropped because four plausible handles turned out to be empty accounts before the real one was found and checked.
Still in their twenties
Three actors, all born in 1996 or 1997, all with more than a decade of screen work already behind them.
1Bhavya Gandhi
Do the maths on his childhood and it stops being cute. He was eleven when Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah started in 2008 and twenty when he left it in 2017, which means the country watched him grow up in real time on a set he could not leave without giving up the single most secure job in Indian television. He had also played the young Suryakant in the Hindi film Striker in 2010. Then he walked.
The Gujarati filmography since then is the interesting part, because it is a working actor's list rather than a former child star's: Munjal Mehta in Pappa Tamne Nahi Samjaay in 2017, Varun in Bau Na Vichaar in 2019, Himesh Thakar in Kehvatlal Parivar in 2022, Kartik in Ajab Raat Ni Gajab Vaat, and Kesari Veer in 2025. He is twenty nine and eighteen years into a career. Almost nobody in this cohort has that, and it is the reason he reads older than his birth date.
Photo: Bollywood Hungama, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
2Darsheel Safary
He was cast because a scriptwriter went looking for a boy who could improvise bunking school and found him at Shiamak Davar's dance summer camp in late 2006. Amol Gupte's line about the audition was that Darsheel had the mischief in his eyes. He was ten when Taare Zameen Par released, and the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor went to a child carrying a two and a half hour film about dyslexia. Rajeev Masand wrote that he carried the picture completely on his shoulders.
What happened next is the part worth putting on a list about Gujarati cinema. Bumm Bumm Bole in 2010, Zokkomon in 2011, Deepa Mehta's Midnight's Children in 2012, then a deliberate break to study. He came back through the anthology Yeh Hai Aashiqui in 2016 and the Hindi sports drama Hukus Bukus in 2023, and in the same year he turned up in Kutch Express, a Gujarati film. India's most celebrated child performance of the 2000s now has a Gujarati credit on it. Fifteen years ago that sentence would have been read as a demotion. It is not one.
Photo: Bollywood Hungama, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
3Yash Soni
The arithmetic here is the point. He turns thirty in October, which means he has been a leading man in Gujarati cinema for eleven of his twenty nine years, starting at nineteen. Chhello Divas in 2015, the Hindi remake Days of Tafree in 2016, Shu Thayu? in 2018, Chaal Jeevi Laiye! in 2019, and then a three film year in 2022 with Naadi Dosh, Raado and Kehvatlal Parivar. Nobody else on this page has that density of leads at that age.
The risk in a start that early is that you become a fixed idea before you are twenty five, and the collegiate comedy face is a comfortable trap. Raado in 2022 was the film that pushed against it, a harder register than anything the 2015 wave asked of him. He also keeps working in theatre alongside the films, which in Gujarat is less a prestige move than a maintenance schedule. An actor who is going to spend another thirty years in front of a camera needs somewhere to fail in private first.
Photo: Nizil Shah, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Exactly thirty
Five actors born between January 1996 and November 1995, and no two of them arrived by the same route.
4Parikshit Tamaliya
There is no origin story here and that is the recommendation. He debuted in Shital Shah's Duniyadari in 2017 at twenty one as Krunal Zaveri, took Chintu in Saheb in 2019, then Munna in Saatam Aatham and a part in Prem Prakran in 2022, Tejas in Hu ane Tu in 2023 and Shubh in Vaar Tahevaar in 2024. Saatam Aatham, again with Shital Shah, was the one that moved him up to lead. Two more films are dated for 2026.
English Wikipedia files him as a theatre and film actor, in that order, which is the older Gujarati sequence and increasingly a rare one in this age group. He is also the entry that nearly did not make this page. He has no free-licensed photograph anywhere, and four plausible Instagram handles turned out to be empty shells before the real account was found and scraped, tagged in the cast announcement for the Gujarati film Fafda Jalebi alongside Malhar Thakar and Puja Joshi. A verified profile is not a vanity metric on a page like this. It is the only proof of identity available.
Instagram: @parikshittamalliya_ (verified 2026-07-29).
5Siddhi Idnani
Her first film was Gujarati. That single fact reverses the usual order of this story. Grand Hali came out in 2017 when she was twenty one, and instead of the Gujarati industry keeping her, the south took her: Jamba Lakidi Pamba in Telugu in 2018, Prema Katha Chitram 2, Anukunnadi Okati Ayinadi Okati in 2020, and then the performance that got her taken seriously, Paavai in Vetrimaaran's Tamil production Vendhu Thanindhathu Kaadu in 2022.
The Hindi debut followed in The Kerala Story in 2023, and in 2024 she came back to Gujarati for The Great Gujarati Matrimony as Itishree. Four industries by thirty, opened by a Gujarati film almost nobody outside the state saw. For an actor deciding today whether a Gujarati debut is a dead end or a doorway, her filmography is the most useful counter-argument available, because she did not build a Gujarati base and then leave. She used one Gujarati film as a starting line.
Photo: Desiplaza TV, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
6Helly Shah
She has been working since she was fourteen. Zindagi Ka Har Rang...Gulaal in 2010, then Diya Aur Baati Hum, Alaxmi Ka Super Parivaar, Khelti Hai Zindagi Aankh Micholi, Swaragini from 2015, Devanshi, the double role of Saltanat and Kaynaat in Sufiyana Pyaar Mera, and Riddhima in Ishq Mein Marjawan 2 and its web continuation. That is sixteen unbroken years on Hindi television, which is a different kind of training from the film route and produces a different kind of actor.
The Gujarati work is recent and deliberate. She told The Times of India in April 2023 that she was stepping out of her comfort zone for her Gujarati debut, and in 2025 she played Kruti in Surprise and Khushi in Deda. Read her alongside Siddhi Idnani and a pattern shows up that nobody in Gujarat is saying out loud: the industry is now recruiting from Hindi television rather than losing people to it. That is what a market looks like when it can finally pay.
Photo: Bollywood Hungama, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
7Denisha Ghumra
She went to St Ann's in Jamnagar, studied business management and performing arts in Ahmedabad, and made her first film the one that changed the industry's ceiling. Hellaro released on 8 November 2019, five days before her twenty fourth birthday, won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film, and its Special Jury Award was written as a single citation covering all thirteen of its actresses. She was one of them.
What she did with it is the part most award stories skip. She did not sit on the citation. Saatam Aatham, Raktbeej, Raado and Bharat Maro Desh Chhe all came in 2022, Kutch Express and Accident or Conspiracy: Godhra in 2023, Nasoor in 2024, and Behrupiyo and Kadaknath are dated 2026. That is roughly ten films in seven years in an industry that releases a few dozen a year. Her Instagram bio still opens with the Hellaro award, which is either sentiment or good positioning, and in her case it is probably both.
Instagram: @denishaghumra_official (verified 2026-07-29).
8Janki Bodiwala
The most underrated fact about her is a coincidence of casting. She and Yash Soni were both in Chhello Divas in 2015 and both were barely twenty, and eleven years later they are two of the three most bankable people under thirty in Gujarati cinema. One film, one director, one year, two careers. Krishnadev Yagnik has never been given proper credit for that piece of talent spotting.
Her route diverged from his in genre rather than in scale. Chhutti Jashe Chhakka in 2018 and Naadi Dosh in 2022 kept her in comedy, and then Vash in 2023 moved her into horror, which at the time was a category Gujarati cinema barely worked in. The bet paid at the 71st National Film Awards and again when the Hindi remake kept her instead of replacing her. Choosing an underserved genre in a small industry is a strategy, not luck, and it is the single most copyable thing any young Gujarati actor has done this decade.
Photo: Bollywood Hungama, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Thirty one to thirty four
The senior end of the cohort, and the four with the deepest filmographies.
9Shraddha Dangar
Count the directors rather than the films. Dharmessh Mehta, Saurin Chaudhary, Mihir Bhuta, Abhishek Shah, Durgesh Tanna, Darshan Ashwin Trivedi, Vipul Mehta, Hardik Gajjar, Vijaygiri Bava, Viral Shah and Abhinav Deshmukh have all directed her since 2017. That is eleven separate people choosing the same actor in nine years, in an industry small enough that everyone has worked with everyone. Nobody accumulates that list by being available.
The work itself keeps changing shape. Aashka in a family comedy, Jaadu in a musical, Manjhri in a period drama in the Rann of Kutch, Teju in Mara Pappa Superhero, Heta Thakar in Kehvatlal Parivar, then the period action of Kasoombo in 2024, the Telugu and Hindi series Mansion 24 in the same year, and Maharani in 2025. She also led the Gujarati web serial Geet in 2019. At thirty one she has already done the thing that usually takes a full career, which is to stop being castable as one type.
Instagram: @shraddhadangar_official (verified 2026-07-29).
10Devarshi Shah
He started in Hindi daily television, in Yeh Un Dinon Ki Baat Hai and Rishton Ka Chakravyuh, which is the job most young actors take because it pays and then cannot get out of because it eats every working day. He got out. Hardik Abhinandan in 2016, Bau Na Vichar in 2019, Raado in 2022, Jaishree Krishh in 2023, The Great Gujarati Matrimony in 2024 and Bachu Ni Benpani in 2025 is a clean upward Gujarati line with no drift back to the serials.
In between he took a small part in Kho Gaye Hum Kahan in 2023, a Hindi film about three friends and their phones that went straight to a global streaming audience. That is the shape of the modern Gujarati career and it is worth naming precisely: the regional films are the body of work, the Hindi credits are punctuation, and the actor never has to choose a permanent address. English Wikipedia also lists him among Indian male stage actors and under Gujarati theatre, which is where the timing in his comic scenes comes from.
Photo: Nizil Shah, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
11Esha Kansara
Her career is the longest on this page and it started in the least glamorous way possible, as a contestant on Dance India Dance in 2010 at seventeen. Hindi television took the next seven years: Devki Shah in Mukti Bandhan in 2011, Kittu in Ek Nanad Ki Khushiyon Ki Chaabi from 2013, then Maddam Sir in 2020 and Zindagi Mere Ghar Aana in 2021. That is the standard grind, and most people who enter it at seventeen are still in it at thirty three.
She left it for a smaller industry, which on paper is a downgrade and in practice was the opposite. Duniyadari in 2017 as Kavita Zaveri, then Mijaaj and Vandha Villas in 2018, Midnights with Menka, Prem Prakaran, 3 Ekka and Shubhchintak. The reason it worked is scale: on Hindi television she was one of two hundred faces a network could replace, and in Gujarati cinema she is one of a dozen women who can open a film. Sometimes the smart move is to be the biggest thing in a small room.
Photo: Curioussoul21, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
12Kaushambi Bhatt
She is the oldest actor here and she started the latest, at twenty eight, which makes her the most useful entry on the page for anyone who thinks the door shuts at twenty five. Before Hellaro she was a student in Rajkot and then in Ahmedabad, finishing a master's degree in development communication at Gujarat University, a subject with no obvious route into a period film about women in the Rann of Kutch.
Look at 2025 alone: Leelavati in Faati Ne?, Neelu in Jalebi Rocks, Kajal in Maharani, Pinky in Misri, and Auntypreneur. Five releases in one year, six years after her first film. Add Nayika Devi: The Warrior Queen in 2022, Diwali in Kutch Express in 2023 and Sarita in Bhalle Padharya in 2024, and you have the busiest working actor in this cohort. She also does Gujarati theatre, including the play Kaalu Etle Andhaaru. A late start with a stage habit is a more durable combination than an early start without one.
Photo: Imfarhad7, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
What the numbers say
Age on 29 July 2026, youngest first
Ages are simple calendar arithmetic against 29 July 2026, using birth dates published in each actor's English Wikipedia biography. Malhar Thakar is shown last as the cutoff marker and is not part of the list. Anyone whose birth date is absent or contradicted in the source was left off entirely rather than estimated.
Questions people actually ask
Who is the youngest Gujarati actor working today?
Among actors with a published birth date, Bhavya Gandhi and Darsheel Safary are the youngest at 29, both born in 1997, followed by Yash Soni, born 16 October 1996. Several younger performers are working in Gujarati films, but none of them has a birth date published in a source solid enough to put a number on.
Is Malhar Thakar under 35?
No. Malhar Thakar was born on 28 June 1990, which made him 36 in June 2026. He is one of the biggest names in Gujarati cinema and he misses this list by about a year, which is exactly why the cutoff is stated as a date rather than a feeling.
Why are Aarohi Patel and Deeksha Joshi not on this list?
Both are central to this generation of Gujarati cinema and both are almost certainly under 35. Neither has a birth date in her English Wikipedia article, because the field was deliberately emptied under Wikipedia's sourcing rules for living people, and the dates still floating on Wikidata are stale imports of the removed values. A page built on an age filter cannot use a number it cannot source.
Which Gujarati actor under 35 has won a National Film Award?
Janki Bodiwala won Best Actress in a Supporting Role at the 71st National Film Awards for Vash, shared with Urvashi for the Malayalam film Ullozhukku. Shraddha Dangar, Denisha Ghumra and Kaushambi Bhatt each hold a share of the Special Jury Award at the 66th National Film Awards, which was written as one citation covering all thirteen actresses of Hellaro.
Are young Gujarati actors leaving for Hindi films?
The traffic now runs both ways, and this list is the evidence. Janki Bodiwala kept her own role in the Hindi remake of Vash, Devarshi Shah took a Hindi credit and came straight back, and Siddhi Idnani and Helly Shah both arrived in Gujarati cinema after establishing themselves elsewhere. Bhavya Gandhi left a national television job to make Gujarati films, which twenty years ago would have been read as an exit.
Sources and image credits
All photographs are free-licensed files from Wikimedia Commons, reused with the attribution each licence requires. No press agency or studio photographs are hosted on this site. Instagram content is linked or embedded from the official account, never re-hosted.
- English Wikipedia biographies and infobox birth dates for all twelve actors, retrieved July 2026
- English Wikipedia filmography tables for Bhavya Gandhi, Darsheel Safary, Helly Shah, Siddhi Idnani, Denisha Ghumra, Kaushambi Bhatt, Parikshit Tamaliya, Devarshi Shah, Esha Kansara and Shraddha Dangar
- 66th and 71st National Film Awards citations as recorded on English Wikipedia
- Wikimedia Commons file pages for licence, photographer and image description on every photograph used
- Instagram profile scrapes for Parikshit Tamaliya, Denisha Ghumra and Shraddha Dangar, run 29 July 2026, each confirmed by corroborating profile content rather than by name alone
- The Times of India Gujarati film coverage cited in the Wikipedia articles for Helly Shah's Gujarati debut and Parikshit Tamaliya's Saatam Aatham