38 reasons to love Kajol

Talented actress and busy mother Kajol, last spotted at the Vogue Beauty Awards 2012 in Mumbai, turns 38 today.

Kajol appears on the cover of this month's Vogue. The Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge actress previously featured on the cover of Vogue in 2009, with her favourite co-star Shah Rukh Khan.

In May, at the Dadasaheb Phalke Academy Awards in Mumbai, Kajol was spotted in a beautiful printed silk sari.

It followed April's stunning appearance, in a floral print sari at the store launch of designers Shantanu and Nikhil.

On April 18, the actress attended Bappa Lahiri's wedding reception in Mumbai.

In the same month Kajol stepped out in a white and blue net sari by designer and friend Manish Malhotra for a fashion show.

Coming Up: A look at her journey so far.

Touted as one of the best actresses in Bollywood, Kajol, who is of Bengali-Marathi descent, in fact belongs to a family tree with a long respectable history in the Indian cinema and hence, acting is embedded deep within her genes.

Kajol's mother is yesteryear's actress Tanuja, who has starred in films like Yaarana and Mere Jeevan Sathi, while her father was a popular producer-director Shomu Mukherjee.

Kajol is also related to star singer-actor Kishore Kumar--her paternal grandfather was married to the maestro's sister.

It doesn't end there: her maternal aunt, Nutan, was one of the leading actresses of her time.

Her cousin, actor Mohnish Behl, was a popular villain during the 90's; Ayan Mukherjee, another of her cousins, is a successful director.

Even sister Tanissha is an actress, struggling to make a mark in Bollywood.

Kajol has mostly steered clear of romantic attachments while she was starting out in Bollywood, with the exception of actor Kamal Sadanah, her co-star in her debut movie Bekhudi. It is said that the affair ended badly.

The only other actor she dated was Ajay Devgn, who is now her husband.

Her on-screen chemistry with Shah Rukh Khan made them the nation's favourite jodi, with hits like Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham and last year's My Name Is Khan.

Their first film together was in 1993, Abbas-Mustan's Baazigar. The film was a blockbuster hit and catapulted both its lead actors to the A-list.

In 1994, she starred in Yeh Dillagi opposite Saif Ali Khan and Akshay Kumar.

Not only was the film declared a hit, Kajol also received her first Filmfare nomination in the Best Actress category for her performance.

In 1995, Aditya Chopra's directorial debut, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, once again paired Kajol with Shah Rukh Khan. The romance-drama redefined a whole genre of films. In fact, it still runs to packed houses in the Maratha Mandir theatre in Mumbai.

In 1997, Kajol won her third Filmfare Award for Best Actress (this time, South), for the film Minsaara Kanavu, in which she starred opposite Prabhu Deva and Arvind Swami.

The film, which was released in Hindi as Sapnay, had almost twenty A R Rahman compositions, like Ek Baghiya and Chanda Re.

1997 ended on a good note, because she finished with another blockbuster hit in Ishq, opposite future husband Ajay.

In 1998, Kajol appeared in her first film with Salman Khan.

Pyaar Kiya To Darna Kya, written and directed by Salman's younger brother, Sohail, was one of the biggest hits of the year. She played a restricted sister to Arbaaz Khan's overbearing brother. Arbaaz, of course, is also Salman's brother, making it a Khan family affair.

There was more success in store for Kajol in 1998 with Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha opposite Ajay Devgn. The film was a remake of the Hollywood flick French Kiss.

However, her biggest hit of the year was opposite Shah Rukh Khan once again. Karan Johar's directorial debut, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, went on to become a runaway success, the biggest film of the year in both India and abroad.

At the Filmfare Awards, she achieved the unique feat of being nominated for three films within the same year and, beating out competition from basically her own self, woinning her her second Filmfare Best Actress Award for Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and her fourth overall.

Kajol then went on to star opposite Anil Kapoor in the moving family drama Hum Aapke Dil Mein Rehte Hain. She received another Filmfare Best Actress nomination, but lost to Aishwarya Rai for Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam.

After a bland outing in 2001's Kuchh Khatti Kuchh Meethi (featuring her in her second double role), she bounced back to the top with Karan Johar's Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, which became the second highest grossing film of her career, behind Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge. No surprises for guessing who her co-star in the film was, once again: Shah Rukh Khan.

K3G, as the film is popularly abbreviated, won Kajol her third Filmfare Best Actress Award, and fifth overall, setting a record for the most number of wins by an actress. Incidentally, she shares this record with her late maternal aunt, Nutan.

After K3G's phenomenal success, Kajol decided to take a five year break from the movies to concentrate on raising her daughter.

Most actresses don't really make an impression with their comeback vehicles (case in point: Madhuri Dixit's damp squib, Aaja Nachle), but here again Kajol proved herself a trendsetter.

She returned to the big screen in 2006, with Kunal Kohli's Fanaa, one of the highest grossing films of the year. The film also marked Aamir Khan's first project with Yash Raj Films. Portraying a blind Kashmiri girl who falls in love with a Kashmiri terrorist in the film, Kajol won her fourth Filmfare Best Actress Award and sixth overall.

In 2008, her husband, Ajay Devgn, debuted once again--this time as a director. U, Me Aur Hum, which starred Ajay as Kajol's reel-life husband, performed moderately at the box office. Kajol's sensitive portrayal of an Alzheimer's patient and Ajay's immaculate direction were both critically applauded.

In 2010, she reunited with Shah Rukh Khan in Karan Johar's My Name Is Khan.

A raging blockbuster, it marked the jodi's on-screen return after nine years.

Ajay and Kajol, who have acted together in films like Pyaar Toh Hona Hi Tha (1998), Raju Chacha (2000) and Ajay's directorial debut U, Me Aur Hum (2008), married on February 24, 1999.

Four years after their marriage, which surprised Bollywood as a marriage of opposites, Kajol gave birth to the couple's first child, daughter Nysa.

Her second child, son Yug, was born on September 13, 2010.

Here's wishing the actress a great year ahead.