Written by: Siddhartha Krishnan | 6 Min Read
Main Vaapas Aaunga is a film you want to like. It carries no visible agenda. Like every other Imtiaz Ali film, it follows a hero’s journey that is at once literal and philosophical, keeping a distance from the politics embedded in its themes, choosing instead to tell the human story underneath. It moves fluidly between past and present, treating memory as terrain rather than backdrop. There is much here to admire. But does any of it add up into a film that truly moves you?
The Plot
The story follows Ishar Singh Grewal, a 95-year-old man on his deathbed, battling advanced dementia. He is stubborn, difficult to converse with, resented by family members who have long grown weary of his suffering and, at this moment, as delusional as a man can be.
But he is also a survivor of Partition, and somewhere in Sargodha lies unfinished business he must resolve before he breathes his last. Despite his failing health and a family urging him toward peace, he clings to life because decades ago, he promised his college sweetheart that he would come back. Until that promise is fulfilled, even his last breath refuses to let go.
This conundrum forms the core of Main Vaapas Aaunga.
Screenplay
Main Vaapas Aaunga deals with familiar Imtiaz Ali themes: love transcending time, fractured timelines, journeys of self-discovery and the longing to return to one’s roots.
While Imtiaz fairly demands that his audience stay invested in the film’s abstractions and philosophical concerns, Main Vaapas Aaunga often undercuts itself by refusing to trust that audience. There is an innate need to verbalize everything. Conversations repeatedly articulate emotions and ideas that the images are already conveying, leaving little room for viewers to inhabit the film’s silences or arrive at their own conclusions.
This tendency extends beyond dialogue. The dreamlike imagery, musical interludes designed to establish character, and occasional comic passages that do not entirely land contribute to a sense of excess.
At two hours and forty-seven minutes, Main Vaapas Aaunga could easily have benefited from a leaner edit. Stripped of some of its embellishments, the film might have remained more firmly anchored to what it does best: examining Partition’s human cost and the emotional residue left behind by displacement.
The closest companion piece to Main Vaapas Aaunga in Imtiaz Ali’s filmography is Love Aaj Kal. Both films explore love across generations and time. But where Love Aaj Kal trusted its emotional beats to resonate on their own, Main Vaapas Aaunga too often feels compelled to explain itself.
That said, there are several moments in the film that are genuinely affecting. The big reveal, the horrors of Partition that unfold toward the end, and the family confrontations that seek to find humanity amidst pain. There is also the film’s refusal to be sensational, hyper-violent or controversial. It chooses instead to focus on the people caught in history’s crossfire.
It is in these moments, where the film transcends borders and politics to speak about loss, longing, and memory, that Main Vaapas Aaunga shines brightest. They offer glimpses of a deeply humane film, one that might have been even more powerful had it trusted its audience as much as it trusts its ideas.
Technical Aspects
The production design of the pre-Partition era is commendable. Main Vaapas Aaunga does not aspire to the grand visual scale of a Sanjay Leela Bhansali spectacle, but its rendering of 1947 Sargodha as simple, lived-in and uncluttered feels appropriate. These are not historical recreations as much as fragments revisited through the fading memories of a dying man.
Sylvester Fonseca’s cinematography complements this approach beautifully. The present carries the polished sheen of contemporary cinema, while the past is imbued with painterly compositions, warm earthy tones and a nostalgic softness that lends memory an almost tactile quality.
A.R. Rahman’s though music proves more uneven. Songs such as Maskara, Tere Paas Main and Kya Khamaal Hai linger, but the remaining tracks leave little impression. The background score occasionally elevates key moments but rarely carries the sustained emotional weight the film demands.
Performances
The film boasts a capable ensemble, led by Naseeruddin Shah at the top of his game. As Ishar Singh Grewal, Shah is utterly convincing, bringing restraint, nuance and vulnerability to a man suspended between memory and mortality. Much of the performance resides in his eyes, communicating years of longing, regret and unresolved grief. This is easily among his finest performances of the past two decades.
Vedang Raina, as the younger Ishar, and Sharvari, as Afsana, bring the innocence and tenderness their characters require. Imtiaz Ali stages their romance with the earnestness of Hindi cinema from the 1950s and 1960s, lending it a nostalgic charm. Both actors deliver sincere performances, though some of their scenes feel stretched, a limitation stemming more from the screenplay than the actors themselves.
Diljit Dosanjh, as Ishar’s grandson Nirvair, occupies a pivotal position in the narrative. Effective in both the lighter and more poignant moments, he nevertheless feels underserved by a role that deserved more emotionally charged scenes.
Rajat Kapoor, Kumud Mishra, Sanjay Suri, Anjana Sukhani, Banita Sandhu and Manish Chaudhuri lend solid support. The interactions among Ishar’s family members often emerge as some of the film’s most engaging moments, balancing humour, frustration and tenderness while grounding the story in recognisable human relationships.
Verdict
Main Vaapas Aaunga possesses many of the hallmarks of an Imtiaz Ali film. It is anchored by a powerful premise and a towering performance from Naseeruddin Shah, through whose memories we revisit one of the most traumatic chapters of modern Indian history.
The film had the potential to become a deeply affecting meditation on Partition, displacement and the wounds history leaves behind. Yet its tendency to over-explain and repeatedly drift away from its strongest themes prevents it from achieving the emotional impact it strives for.
And yet, Main Vaapas Aaunga is far from a failure. It contains moments of genuine poignancy, particularly in its final act, where history, love and memory finally converge. The closing song, Kya Khamaal Hai, sung by Diljit Dosanjh and played over the end credits, perhaps encapsulates the film better than anything that precedes it. Through its imagery, lyrics and melancholy warmth, it distils the compassion, longing and universality at the heart of the story.
If only the film had trusted those emotions to resonate throughout, instead of constantly articulating them, Main Vaapas Aaunga might have stood alongside Imtiaz Ali’s very best work.
IMDb rating: 8.3/10
My Rating: 3/5
Watch Main Vaapas Aaunga in a theatre next to you.
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About the author:
Siddhartha Krishnan is the author of ‘Two and a Half Rainbows – A Collection of Short Stories’. An enthusiastic blogger he shares his essays, travelogues, book and movie reviews on his blog (www.whatsonsidsmind.com).
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