Across his urban romances and coming-of-age dramas, Imtiaz Ali’s films always find his protagonists undertake a physical or emotional journey that lead them to confront their truths and discover themselves. Main Vaapas Aaunga, his latest directorial, is about a journey into the past that draws back the curtain on a love story that is tender, touching and full of pathos.
A Partition-era love story narrated in flashback, it is about a youth who makes a solemn vow to his sweetheart of never leaving her, and how he tries to honour his promise to her till the very end after they are forced to be separated during Partition. What is unique about this romantic narrative is the way Ali allows the love story to become the focus of the tragedy of Partition being played out in the larger realm. Beyond its hatred, cruelty and violence, the film remains one of hope, love, unity and a sense of belonging. On another level, Main Vaapas Aaunga integrates within itself universal themes of migration, homelessness and uprootedness, making it resonate with modern audiences.
A love story at its core, an atmosphere of romance, emotion and nostalgia is effortlessly established in Main Vaapas Aaunga, in which a vintage aura is evoked through its combination of Ali’s poetic storytelling and A.R. Rahman’s haunting music. The slow-burn, secretive and restrained love affair between Keenu (Vedang Raina) and Jiya (Sharvari) suggests their innocence and passion in equal measure while its defining aesthetic, grounded in rural Punjab with its vast agricultural tracts and aristocratic old-world mansions, is both charming and visually soothing. Its music pays homage to classic old-school Bollywood romances but retains a contemporary feel through the use of fusion instruments and a blend of Punjabi folk tunes with pop beats. Maskara, the song in which Raina sings for his own character, and which has already climbed the popularity charts, is a happy, playful number that captures the young lovers’ feelings of nervousness, hesitation and excitement about being in love and knowing also that it is reciprocated.
Naseeruddin Shah, who portrays the old and dying Keenu, delivers a moving portrayal as someone suffering the silent, lifelong trauma of being homeless. His crankiness serves as an exterior for his inner emptiness and his feelings of being in exile from his own land. His speech at the end of the film about his soul having stayed back in Sargodha in Pakistan sums up his character beautifully, both as a lover and as someone with deep and profound love for his homeland and his family. Raina’s performance is noteworthy not only as a shy and devoted lover, it is equally defined by his patriotism and spirit of communal harmony. Sharvari impresses as the bubbly and bold Jiya, her look reminiscent of black-and-white-era Bollywood heroines, while her chemistry with Raina is fresh, intimate and exciting. Diljit Dosanjh as Keenu’s London-returned grandson anchors the film’s action, his layered performance allowing the plot to stay on track in spite of its back-and-forth movements between the present and the past.
The cinematography in Main Vaapas Aaunga shifts between being warm and tender in its romantic moments, and conveying the restlessness of the pre-Partition era and the horrors of Partition. From the simmering hatred and rise of communal discord, to the heart-wrenching images of trains packed with refugees and the terrifying atrocities committed in the name of religion — the camera captures everything in agonising detail, making Main Vaapas Aaunga become a complex document of the trauma of Partition and the curse of divisive politics. Blending the film’s frames with real footage from the Partition era has an overwhelming impact on the audience, making them empathise with the tragedy on a deeper, realistic level. And though the film is about a Sikh family crossing the border in Punjab, the melancholic strains of a Bengali song accompanying visuals of hapless refugees in bullock carts and camps, makes a significant acknowledgement to similar ordeals on India’s eastern border, unifying both tragedies and giving a stamp to historical truths that should be told in their totality.
Main Vaapas Aaunga’s screenplay, designed almost like a stage performance, is vivid and pictorial. As the romance plays out against the conflict-torn backdrop of Partition in the timeline of the past, the dying Keenu’s incoherent, rambling stories underline the meaninglessness, unfairness and brutality of Partition and how it destroyed lives. Yet Main Vaapas Aaunga remains a film that raises a toast to true, eternal love and is a heartwarming romance that also tries to give lessons on commitment in relationships to the younger generation.
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