Imtiaz Ali reveals the story behind ‘Main Vaapas Aaunga’

Indian auteur Imtiaz Ali has shed light on the finer details of his upcoming film “Main Vapas Aaunga.” The filmmaker spoke with IANS during the promotions of the film, which stars Diljit Dosanjh in the lead. “Main Vapas Aaunga,” which marks the filmmaker’s 2nd collaboration with Diljit Dosanjh, is set in the era after the Partition of India, which is the largest mass migration in human history. The event, which led to the carving out of Pakistan from India, led to displacement of an estimated 14 to 18 million people.

Talking about the nuances of the film, Imtiaz told IANS, “So what we have done is that we have had certain lensing styles and for production design. When you remember a memory, there is a cleanness, you remember fewer things than what existed. So we have used that in production design. We have cast faces that can give an impression of how these people could have been in 1947. Then styling them, because we worked with the team very closely, Shoma and the look team, and Sheetal, the costume team, with so many references trying to create those faces that we see in old photographs in albums. How people dressed up in Punjab in the 1940s”.

The director shared that during the research process, the team came across many interesting findings which added to the film’s structure.

He further mentioned, “What we discovered firstly in the research was quite different from what we expected. For instance, people were very westernised, more westernised than today, because it was a part of the West. They were listening to English songs. You will see that in old films. There’s a certain type of music and hairstyle. So we went after that. And even the light of the memory is a certain different color. So we imposed that, we brought that out. That is how we have created the colours of the shirts because all kinds of dyes were not even available. So we went into the research and discovered what dyes were available. And we have clothes that were authentic to that period”.

“So everything put together makes that one frame. And we’ve had a certain type of lensing when you look at when you imagine your own memory. And we try to create that by the use of lenses and by use of filters, we created some special filters for ourselves. We sometimes have even done this whole thing of bringing elements of the past into the present time”, he added.

Produced by Sameer Nair and Deepak Segal of Applause Entertainment, along with Mohit Choudhary and Shibasish Sarkar of Window Seat Films. “Main Vapas Aaunga” is set to release in cinemas on June 12, 2026. The filmmaker shared that memories was the key element to achieve a specific palette and visual texture of the film. He told IANS, “We followed the memory, the images in the memory of Ishar. So, Ishar Singh Grewal is the character who is 95 years old. And now retrospectively, he is thinking about those beautiful times of his past, when he was in college. So there is a certain hue or tone that memory achieves”.

He further mentioned, “It might even be different from how the light and the texture was at the time when it happened. But when it is remembered 78 years later, it acquires a rose tint. And that is how I think we got the images of this film, and very consciously we’ve got them. We have gone after what a happy memory feels like. So we have chased that image in this film. And we have brought it about by a certain type of lensing, by a certain type of light and costume design, and the use of many camera techniques also”. “Main Vapas Aaunga” stars Diljit, Naseeruddin Shah, Vedang Raina, and Sharvari Wagh. The film marks Imtiaz and Rahman’s 5th collaboration after massive chartbuster albums of “Rockstar,” “Highway,” “Tamasha” and “Amar Singh Chamkila.”

Indo-Asian News Service