Main Vaapas Aaunga Review: Imtiaz Ali and Diljit Dosanjh Revisit Partition in a Film That Breaks Your Heart Quietly

Some love stories end. Some never do. That is not a romantic idea. It is the unbearable truth at the Imtiaz Ali's latest film released on June 12, 2026, and one of the more unusual romantic dramas to arrive in Hindi cinema this year.

The title translates to "I Will Return." And when you understand what it means within the film's context, it lands with a weight that is hard to shake off.

What Main Vaapas Aaunga Is About: A Love Story Buried Under Partition

Ishar Singh Grewal (played by Naseeruddin Shah) is 95 years old and dying in a Chandigarh home full of people who have quietly started waiting for it to happen. He is suffering from dementia, and his thoughts are not linear. He is not really in 2026. He is somewhere in pre-Partition Sargodha, falling in love with a Muslim woman named Afsana Hasan (played by Sharvari), and it is a love that the violence of 1947 tore apart before it could become anything.

His grandson Nirvair (Diljit Dosanjh), who has flown in from the UK, is one of the only people who actually listens to him. And in listening, Nirvair begins to understand not just his grandfather's past, but the shape of a wound that has been passing through their family for decades without a name.

The film is co-written by Imtiaz Ali and Nayanika Mahtani, with music by A. R. Rahman and lyrics by Irshad Kamil. Cinematography is handled by Sylvester Fonseca.

What the Critics Are Saying About Main Vaapas Aaunga

The critical response has been broadly positive, with particular praise for the performances and the film's emotional ambition.

Bollywood Hungama described the film as standing out for its strong performances and an emotional climax. The Week noted that the film asks what becomes of those who survive history's catastrophes, and how their scars are inherited by those who come after. It is, as the review put it, not a film about the horrors of 1947, but about their afterlife.

Naseeruddin Shah's performance has been universally praised. His portrayal of Ishar, a man whose dementia has stripped away the present but left the past painfully intact, is described as deeply affecting. One line in the film, where Ishar looks at his son and says "we all killed her," has been highlighted across multiple reviews as a moment that stays with you long after the credits roll.

Diljit Dosanjh continues his collaboration with Imtiaz Ali, following their work together on Amar Singh Chamkila in 2024. Reviewers have noted that his role asks for restraint and listening rather than showmanship, and he delivers.

Sharvari as the young Afsana carries the emotional weight of the film's romance and has been praised for bringing warmth and genuine presence to a role that could have easily been overshadowed by the historical subject matter.

Where the Film Struggles

Not everything lands. The film runs 166 minutes and critics have noted this is longer than the story strictly demands. Scroll pointed to long-winded scenes, abrupt narrative jumps, and sub-plots, including a strand involving Nirvair trying to develop a fertiliser, that feel disposable given the weight of everything else around them.

The screenplay's structure, fractured in a way that mirrors Ishar's mental state, sometimes undercuts the film's boldest qualities rather than enhancing them. The handling of communal violence during Partition has also drawn criticism, with one reviewer observing that the film sticks to a conventional portrayal that softens the complexity of what actually happened

A Film That Earns Its Emotion

Despite its unevenness, Main Vaapas Aaunga is a film with something real to say about memory, inheritance, and the kind of love that does not resolve neatly into grief or forgetting. The A. R. Rahman score, the period recreation of Punjab, and the performances across the cast give it a texture that most Bollywood releases simply do not attempt.

It is not a perfect film. It is a sincere one. And sometimes, that is rarer and more valuable