MUMBAI: The world is getting harsher and that is precisely why Imtiaz Ali says he made "Main Vaapas Aaunga", a story about love, healing and the quiet sweetness that people carry in their hearts long after everything around them has been torn apart.
With the film, which reunites Ali with his "Amar Singh Chamkila" star Diljit Dosanjh, the director seeks to explore how love is the very thing that makes survival possible during and even after a crisis.
"I feel that all of us have some sweetness, which we ascribe either to a romantic or to a spiritual thing that we keep close to our hearts that sustains us through harsh realities.
Today in the world, a lot is going wrong, there is a lot of strife, unfortunately. Therefore, there is all the more reason to remind ourselves of the love in our hearts," the director told PTI in an interview.
"The emotion of love, healing, romance, and beauty is required more in a condition of harshness outside.
When there is strife, there is more reason for us to keep closer what is precious to our heart," he added.
Set against the backdrop of the Partition of India, Ali's new film draws not from history books but from the first-hand accounts of survivors he encountered while filming for his 2024 movie "Amar Singh Chamkila" across Punjab.
He met elderly men and women who, decades later, spoke not of the violence they had witnessed but of the beauty they had held onto.
"What surprised me when I met these very old people is that the stories they are talking about now are not stories of tragedy, nor are they stories of hatred.
In fact, they are only talking about things that are dear and precious, loving and beautiful," said the filmmaker, known for films like "Rockstar", "Tamash", "Love Aaj Kal", "Highway" and "Jab We Met".
He added that such recollections highlight an inherent "romanticism in humanity".
"Main Vaapas Aaunga" follows a young man (Vedang Raina) who falls in love with a woman (Sharvari) in the pre-Partition era.
The story unfolds across two timelines, with Naseeruddin Shah essaying the older version of the character and Diljit Dosanjh playing his grandson.
The film marks Ali's first collaboration with Shah, though their connection goes back to early 2000s.
They first met at a Mumbai editing studio, when Shah had dropped in to evaluate actor Ayesha Takia from Ali's debut film "Socha Na Tha" (2005) for his own directorial project, "Yun Hota Toh Kya Hota" (2006).
When they finally worked together, Ali found the veteran to be a man without ego.
"You give him something, he reacts directly, he does not set a standard for his directors.
I thought that maybe I'll have to say it in a certain way which is more the right way of directing but he was not judging me at all.
He was just trying to take what he could from me to have a good performance underway," Ali said.
"I feel there is so much more that this actor has in him to give, he has done so much, he understands so much.
But believe me, he does not wear it on his sleeve, he does not throw his experience at you at all.
So, people should approach him without any fear.
He is just like a kid, all artists, in some way, are like kids."
In the movie, Shah's character battles dementia -- a man held together by emotions he never resolved in his youth -- and the physical demands were relentless: three hours of daily makeup, hours strapped to a cot with ECG leads.
Between takes, rather than breaking the spell, Shah simply remained.
"It was very uncomfortable, so troublesome for him to get up and off and come back again to his position that he used to sit over there while the lighting was changing.
Sometimes for 45 minutes he would just keep lying on the cot because it was easier to just be in that way."
Ali said the on-screen dynamic between Shah and Diljit Dosanjh was pleasant to watch and it brought a certain emotional depth to the story.
"The way Diljit and Naseer have done scenes, I feel (they are) very light, entertaining, meaningful, and layered.
And that's very good because I had gone ahead and thought 'Main Vaapas Aaunga' should be that film with all its layers, texts and subtleties, something that the audience can appreciate and enjoy right at the first viewing," he said.
Dosanjh felt deeply connected to the story as his grandmother had crossed the border during the 1947 Partition while carrying his father as a baby, said Ali.
"We spoke a lot about partition because the scenes that I was performing with them, there was always a basis to those scenes, which I had got from research or from direct experience.
They would tell me stories of other people or their own experiences," Ali said.
According to the filmmaker, migration is the biggest story of the century for the whole world.
"Everybody has come from somewhere or the other just a few generations back, especially in India.
Nobody migrates out of choice.
They only migrate if there is a compelling need or a problem.
So, I'm very blessed and lucky to have stumbled across this story."
Actors Sanjay Suri, Rajat Kapoor, Anjana Sukhani, and Manish Chaudhari round out the cast of "Main Vaapas Aaunga".
The film, produced by Birla Studios and Applause Entertainment along with Mohit Choudhary, Shibasish Sarkar of Window Seat Films, will release in cinemas on June 12.
