In an emotionally raw critique for NDTV, writer Hardika Gupta issues a direct challenge to Indian cinema audiences: stop waiting a decade to celebrate the brilliance of director Imtiaz Ali.
We fell into a predictable ritual with Rockstar (2011), Tamasha (2015), and Laila Majnu (2018)—all of which were met with initial commercial hesitation or critical division, only to be rediscovered years later as definitive cult classics. Gupta argues that Main Vaapas Aaunga shouldn’t suffer the same fate. It deserves its masterpiece status today, not in 2035.
The Core Narrative: Keenu’s 78-Year Promise
At the heart of the film is an aging man named Keenu, portrayed by veteran actor Naseeruddin Shah.
Keenu has lived a full life. He married, raised children, and became a grandfather. Yet, deep within his psyche, he remains anchored to the young girl, Jiya, whom he left behind nearly eight decades prior during the chaos of Partition. As dementia begins to fracture Keenu’s reality, his memory ceases to be a passive archive and instead transforms into a living, breathing landscape where the past and present collide.
The Anatomy of Imtiaz Ali’s Creative Language
The review elegantly breaks down how the film serves as the ultimate culmination of the director’s unique storytelling motifs over the last two decades:
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The Art of Longing: While traditional cinema obsesses over the initial rush of falling in love, Ali’s lens focuses entirely on the aftermath—the yearning, the absence, and the spaces left behind.
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The Art of Not Moving On: Rejecting typical cinematic closures, characters carry their histories with them for decades. In Main Vaapas Aaunga, this reaches a devastating peak when a dying, elderly Keenu looks at a photograph and asks a woman who passed away long ago, “Can I go now?”
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Love as Hallucination: What psychologists might label as dementia or a hallucination, Ali treats as a profound emotional truth. Just as Jordan saw Heer or Majnu spoke to Laila, Keenu spends a lifetime holding active conversations with Jiya.
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The “Seven-Minute” Memory Theory: The film plays heavily on the concept of life flashing before one’s eyes in a final burst of consciousness. The entire narrative moves like a dreamlike, cross-timeline remembrance rather than a linear, straightforward plot.
Partition Viewed Through Grief, Not Statistics
What separates Main Vaapas Aaunga from traditional historical dramas is its refusal to weaponize or politicize trauma.
While history textbooks record borders, political standoffs, and cold migration data, the film focuses heavily on the human currency of displacement. It reminds audiences that before these individuals were classified as refugees or statistics, they were neighbors, children, and lovers with favorite streets and shared songs. It shifts the focus from what Partition physically took away to an even heavier question: Who would these people have become if it had never happened?
By choosing tenderness and empathy over outrage, Imtiaz Ali delivers a narrative that leaves the audience shattered, but fundamentally softer.
