The recent success of Ahaan Panday’s debut movie Saiyaara at the box office has unexpectedly brought Khushi Kapoor’s earlier confession to light, sparking a wave of online response. According to a 2019 interview from Neha Dhupia’s talk show, in which she featured with her sister Jahnvi Kapoor, Khushi expressed her desire to make her acting debut alongside Ahaan Panday before making her own. This open admission is now under discussion, as numerous netizens have expressed relief that this specific pairing for a debut movie didn’t come into being.
The buzz is over a comment made by Khushi previously, where she considered her options for a debut co-star and listed Ahaan Panday as a “safe bet” among other star children based on her earlier watch of his work. Then, this may have been an understandable pairing considering they are both new faces hailing from big film families. However, the course that their respective careers took has produced a different story.
The Dividing Lines of Debut
Ahaan’s “Saiyaara” Success: Ahaan Panday’s latest foray into the world of Bollywood in Saiyaara has received major critical and commercial acceptance. The romantic drama has impressed the film fraternity with its interesting story line and solo performances of the lead pair. Reviews are very positive especially for Ahaan, no one expected much from him but here is an emerging star who will be looked for more in the future. This triumph has solidified his place and quite possibly, in a subtle sense, emphasized the risk of an alternative debut partner.
Khushi’s “The Archies” and Beyond: Khushi Kapoor, however, debuted with “The Archies” in 2023. Whereas the movie created a lot of hype, it received a mixed response, especially about the debutant cast’s performances. Khushi has since been seen on other shows such as Loveyapa and Nadaaniyan in 2025, with mixed critical reception.
This dual debut experience, in contrast to the recent success of Ahaan, has stoked the “Thank God It Didn’t Work” reaction among social media. The reactions online infer that there is a shared opinion that Saiyaara’s success was partly due to its very own casting, such as Ahaan’s chemistry with co-star Aneet Padda.
If Khushi Kapoor had been the lead heroine, some might argue, the dynamics of the film and its ultimate direction could have been altered. This is not so much a criticism of Khushi’s potential, but an observation of the critical chemistry that creates a debut success. The world’s collective judgment, in this instance, appears to be an after-the-fact approval of divergent careers, resulting in what most now see as a serendipitous branching off.
