Imtiaz Ali has directed several films, most notably Jab We Met, Rockstar, Jab Harry Met Sejal, Amar Singh Chamkila and now Main Vaapas Aaunga. Honestly, what I liked best in his basket was Jab We Met, a lovely love story with Shahid Kapoor and Kareena Kapoor Khan. I might give a consolation prize to Amar Singh Chamkila, but his latest, just out in theatres, sorely disappointed me. Yes, the second half does pick up, but the first half plods and fails to grip.
I had to pinch myself to stay awake. Led by Naseeruddin Shah, who essays a 95-year-old Sikh patriot on his deathbed dreaming of a romantic past in the pre-partition era of Sargodha in Punjab, the movie pales in comparison to several that have arrived before Ali’s latest take on Partition, like for instance, Deepa Mehta’s Earth in 1968, Train to Pakistan (1998), adapted from Khushwant Singh’s classic novel, and that brilliant Garam Hawa (1973) led by an equally brilliant Balraj Sahani. Main Vaapas Aaunga centres on Ishar Singh Grewal (an excellent Naseeruddin Shah, but of course), who is 95 and on his deathbed. He has severe dementia.
He is incoherent and rambling, but in the midst of all this, he has one last wish – to visit his hometown of Sargodha in Punjab – which unfortunately is now in Pakistan. Cut to a young Grewal (played by a shy but romantic Vedang Raina), who is love with Afsana (Sharvari Wagh), but the Radcliffe Line not just separates the young lovers but also India leading to one of the bloodiest civil wars the country has ever seen. Grewal promises, Main Vaapas Aaunga (I will come back), but he never does. One of the messiest fallouts of those turbulent times. She waits in misery in a tale we all are familiar with: the horrific exodus of people and the horrible pain of families separated. But have we not seen all this and more in the innumerable number of movies on the subject.
If the plot is hardly novel the script is messy and performances wooden, especially Raina. By the way, I don’t even know why Diljit Dosanjh agreed to play Nirvair, Grewal’s grandson. An actor with a potential, he is turned into a mantlepiece and wasted in a plot that had enormous potential. India’s history, as we all know, saw fragmentation during the Partition with its cruelty – of how elderly women killed young girls just to prevent them from being raped and shamed, and how friends killed friends without any qualms. And Ali does manage to present a snapshot of all these.
But as he has often been criticised for telling identical tales through different characters and situations, his latest work is no exception. Sadly, he offers nothing new, and despite a subject like Partition that still evokes anger and sorrow, he offers nothing worthwhile. The movie fails to capture the disastrous effects of a fire that burnt India many decades ago. Yes, what is remarkable about this film is that Ali manages to convince us that love knows no boundaries and flourishes even in the midst of fire and fury.