Six months later, we’re back in Sargodha. Main Vaapas Aaunga journeys to the same Pakistani city Dharmendra visits in Ikkis. Both journeys represent the last wish of a man at the end of his life; both are weighed down by history but lifted by the idea of shared humanity. It’s quite a coincidence that Sriram Raghavan and Imtiaz Ali zeroed in on the same place for a similar purpose—but then Ali’s cinema has always been powered by blind chance. Even as this film rises to a crescendo, Nirvair (Diljit Dosanjh) pauses to tell a doubter, “So what if it’s a coincidence? Coincidences happen in life.”
Ali’s film opens with Ishar Singh (Naseeruddin Shah, brusquely authoritative) talking back to the newsreader on TV. “I listen to you—why won’t you listen to me?” he scolds her. It’s the last time we see him speak lucidly. After heading out with his driver and trying unsuccessfully to cross the border into Pakistan, he has a stroke. When his voice returns, it’s incoherent mumbling: Martians, Hitler, blitzkrieg, Kapil Dev. Still the news speaks to him, and now he can’t even turn it off.
Ishar’s family, scarred by his bitterness over the years, isn’t too broken up at the thought of his impending demise. But the old man hangs on, restless and agitated, as if he’s in purgatory. Luckily, his UK-returned grandson, Nirvair, is willing to sift through his ramblings and find a thread of sense. It helps that he has nothing much to do; he’s quit his third job in a year and left his girlfriend hanging in England. As Ishar tries to articulate his memories, the film alternates between the present day in Punjab, India, and Sargodha at the time of independence, with Ishar as a young man (Vedang Raina) hopelessly in love with fellow student Afsana (Sharvari).
In his last film, Amar Singh Chamkila (2024), Ali seemed to make a concerted effort to avoid what comes easily to him, yielding a surprising, bracing work. Main Vaapas Aaunga reverts to familiar strategies and themes: poetry, unhurried courtship, more poetry, juggled time frames, and a protagonist who leaves the corporate workforce to follow his heart (by doing awful standup comedy). Aarti Bajaj is again editor here, but the agitated excitement of Chamkila is replaced by a more familiar, conservative flow.
Ali’s reteaming with A.R. Rahman is also muted after the incredible invention of Chamkila. The orchestral swirls of the score are beautiful in themselves but give the film a lushness that doesn’t suit the Partition-era starkness of the story. One early idea, though, is beautifully worked out. Ishar flipping channels on TV at the start is echoed by the cascade of seemingly unrelated images that accompany his stroke. The Rahman track that follows has the same feeling of being stuck between stations: playful Punjabi folk, then boisterous swing band music, then back to Punjabi.
Ishar and Afsana’s romance—all overly lit frames and red roses—takes up a significant portion of the film, which runs to an indulgent 167 minutes. Sharvari's Afsana is more interesting than her lover: she’s playful, well-read, brave, makes the first, second and third move on tongue-tied Ishar. Raina doesn’t quite work; the period and tenor of the film don’t sit well on him, and it’s hard to imagine him ageing into Naseer’s Ishar. There’s not much here that we haven’t seen in other interfaith romances—or in other Partition films. Aside from the repeated blaming of riots on ‘outside elements’, the film is clear-eyed in recalling the violence of that moment. The visual treatment, though, is inconsistent, the action interrupted by black-and-white newsreels and strange, pulpy colour stills. One luridly sensational scene, featuring a terrifying Dolly Alhuwalia, veers into a completely different genre.
Though we’re shown little of Ishar’s life after he comes to India and becomes a successful businessman, we can see that the violent sundering from his homeland breaks him in fundamental ways. His expulsion brings with it lifelong feelings of resentment (which he takes out on his family) and guilt, and only Nirvair is willing to chisel past these to reach the sad core. The film’s final stretch is a race against time to reunite Ishar with some of his memories. It reminded me of a simpler but more moving passage in Bharat (2019), where people on both sides of the border share stories on TV in a bid to be reunited with old friends and family.
Ali seems especially moved by the plight of refugees. The film opens with news of a devastating earthquake. The end credits have Dosanjh singing over footage of various humanitarian crises. It’s heartfelt, and a little cheesy—like everything that’s come before. There’s a small, key moment when an old man hesitates to share his Partition memories, saying they’ll be misunderstood and turned into hate. Main Vaapas Aaunga understands that the past is only worth dredging up if it can heal the present.
‘Main Vaapas Aaunga’ is in theatres.
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