When "Main Vaapas Aaunga" brought back memories, vaapas!

20 June 2026: After a week of bated breath and spamming my friends incessantly to go watch Main Vaapas Aaunga (as if I had watched it already), we finally walked into (limped, thanks to more than an hour's bike ride on a Saturday afternoon in Bengaluru) to the multiplex.

While my stomach had started grumbling, I didn't care much about checking the menu outside. I had to go in, soon!

When we walked out from Screen 3, I held my husband's hand and said, "Phew! This is the first time I am watching Imtiaz's movie in a theatre and walking away smiling. Usually, it's with red eyes." And, much to my surprise, I thought he had teared up a little. Or hadn't he?

As always, the visuals were a treat. The seamless transitions between the past and the present, the present and the past -- hats off to the team behind this! There is laughter, there are tears, there are Martians, and so much more -- anger, jealousy, hope, doubt, wishful thinking, and above all, there is love -- a love that conquers all. Yes, drama genre sprinkled with Imtiaz's magic.

My relationship with his movies have followed my own life's timeline in many ways.

Jab we met (2007) - When school life had quite a few Devdases and the movie came like a transformer bursting into a stark starless night -- all noise, light and then boom-- life never was the same again. I still remember how amazed I felt when I saw the ad for the movie announcement. Here was a movie where the makers wanted us to christen it! So clever!

Just a few days ago, when someone mentioned a certain Anshuman, my mind conjured up Geet's Anshuman's image.

P.S. I do wonder how many passport-size photographs block India's already choking drainage system. 🤔

Love Aaj Kal (2009) - The movie made me wonder if I could take up architecture and do restorative activities. Ye dooriyaan played on loop on my new Nokia 5310 XpressMusic. And as much as I loathed "Aahu, aahu, aahu," couldn't stop tapping my feet to the music!

Mohabbat mushkil bhaari

Badi hi mast bimaari

You wanna let it going on

Mohabbaat lambi yari

Bina permit ke jaari...

(sic)

Seriously? 🤐

But May 2026, and I heard Ye dooriyan on my brother's playlist and I knew there was something about that song. (Just that I hope his reasons for listening to it are different from mine!)

Rockstar (2011) - This one remains special. One of my closest school friends and I watched it together on 11.11.11. And after having known each other for years, it was only after school that we both finally made it to a theatre together. The songs stayed with us long after the movie got over. We just wished the heroine was a little more expressive. The on-screen magic was followed by our first visit to a CCD. We felt so grown up that day and life was still unfurling.

Highway (2014) - This probably was one of those movies where I went with a considerable number of friends. This was a post college, impromptu visit to the nearest mall we had to boast about. I still remember how the one sitting beside me and I walked out of the theatre -- all teary eyed, in awe of Alia Bhatt and renewed admiration for Randeep Hooda.

Tamasha (2015) - More than a decade later, this movie remains a debated discussion point between friends. There are the ones who absolutely love the movie and the ones who just can't. Of course you know which side I am on! The most interesting memory about this still remains this way: Mom and I had decided to step out for a morning walk with our walking shoes and energy in place. We saw Tamasha's poster. Checked timing. 8:25 AM show. We walked straight to Huma Adlabs -- less than 50 metres away from our residence, once upon a time. Woh bhi kya din the!

The movie still remains with me, reminding me time and again that every human being has different sides. We see only the ones they choose to show us. However, once in a while, we all find someone who sees all these sides of us and still chooses to be with us.

Jab Harry Met Sejal (2017) and Love Aaj Kal (2020) -- I skipped both without reason. I remember Imtiaz, Tripti Dimri and the Laila Majnu team on our college campus when there was an opportunity to ask him something, tell him anything. But then, I just smiled. How could I probably summarise what his films meant to me in that short span of time?

Amar Singh Chamkila (2024) - This one walked into my life through my mobile device. Theatre to phone--technology sure did chamkofy. I hummed Mainu vida karo for weeks. The crudity of the other lyrics sunk within the melody of Mainu vida karo. There was something about the movie that stayed with me that I probably can't define.

Main Vaapas Aaunga (2026) - There sat a husband beside this woman I have become! An Imtiaz fan that I am, I wondered if my husband would figure out why I had been so excitedly waiting to watch this. Would he come out saying- "What was that?"

How did it matter? And then, I saw him smiling. While Naseeruddin weft a partition story in a seemingly effortless manner, Diljit and Vedang too strung their bits of the story together through humour, and even shyness. While the story may appear watered down for the survivors of partition, to me it felt like a wonderful way of conveying the horrors of a gruesome past with a pinch of salt so that the audience relates better to the Radcliffe line and takes the value of freedom in its real sense -- and not as a reason to create further rift lines.

Imtiaz and team, kindly take a bow! 😊

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