Imtiaz Ali’s latest wistful romance reunites him with his Amar Singh Chamkila lead actor Diljit Dosanjh, music composer AR Rahman and lyricist Irshad Kamil. In Main Vaapas Aaunga, to love is to remember and to remember is to love.Bradford resident Nirvair (Dosanjh) is lost between a job he doesn’t care for, a stand-up comedy side hustle he isn’t good at and a girlfriend (Banita Sandhu) whom he is unsure about. Back home in India, Nirvair’s nonagenarian grandfather is lost too, in the thickets of dementia.Isher (Naseeruddin Shah) barely makes sense any more to his sons Iqbal (Rajat Kapoor) and Angad (Jaipreet Singh) and daughter-in-law Meher (Anjana Sukhani). Nirvair returns to decipher Isher’s ramblings, which lead back to Isher’s life in Sargodha in pre-Partition Punjab.The ardour between the younger Isher (Vedang Raina) and Afsana (Sharvari) is already doomed. Partition is round the corner. Communal poison is spreading. Sikhs and Hindus are preparing to flee to India. There is dark talk of “outsiders” coming into Sargodha to foment trouble.Isher, who’s more optimistic than a worried Afsana, pays no heed. When threatened by a group of Muslims led by Afzal (Danish Pandor), Isher plonks down on the ground and says, I am going nowhere.Decades after that incident, Isher yearns for the lover, the fields, the houses and monuments to which he had once vowed fidelity. There’s more to Isher’s beseeching, as Nirvair discovers.Naseeruddin Shah and Diljit Dosanjh in Main Vaapas Aaunga (2026). Courtesy Applause Entertainment/Window Seat Films.While trying to follow the twisted thread of Isher’s thoughts, Nirvair is introduced not only to his family’s past, but Partition itself. Strangely clueless about Partition, Nirvair meets with amateur historians, and learns enough to weave the tragedy into a stand-up comedy set.For quite a while, Main Vaapas Aaunga careens between giddy romance, dumbed-down Partition lessons and the older Isher’s battle against erasure. The 166-minute film, co-written by Ali and Nayanika Mahtani, is big on flashbacks, long-winded scenes and abrupt jumps. There are disposable sub-plots: the dynamic between Nirvair and Kaveri, some fertiliser thingie Nirvair is trying to invent.The fractured screenplay, possibly meant to mirror Isher’s mental state, sometimes undercuts the sheer audacity of Main Vaapas Aaunga’s theme: an inter-faith love that knows no borders and inspires closure and understanding, rather than vendetta and enmity, when the story reaches Pakistan.After thrashing about, all along delivering powerful individual scenes, Main Vaapas Aaunga clicks into place. In the resonant climax, as well as in the gorgeous Imagine-like song in the end credits, Imtiaz Ali cuts to the chase about the endurance of love, the secrets of Partition, and the power of remembering.