- 9 hours ago
Mumbai, Maharashtra: In an exclusive Interview with Filmmaker Imtiaz Ali, where he opened up about the inspiration and creative process behind his film 'Main Vaapas Aaunga'. Then, he reflected on how memories of the partition, gathered from personal accounts and literature, shaped the film’s emotional core, focusing on nostalgia, tenderness, and love rather than violence. After that, he explained his approach to visual aesthetics, music with A.R. Rahman, and working with Diljit Dosanjh. Imtiaz Ali also shared his thoughts on storytelling, audience choice, language in cinema and the role of art in times of global conflict, emphasizing hope, humanity, and emotional connection as central themes.
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00:00Hello MTS sir, welcome to INS and first of all, massive congratulations for May Wapas Ahunga.
00:06I want to start off by asking right off the bat, the germ of the idea.
00:10What was that process for you getting into, first getting the idea, what inspired you
00:15and then how did you go about putting this entire world together of the film?
00:18You know, right from my childhood, I've been firstly reading stories of the partition
00:24and written by wonderful authors, very inspiring and very funny.
00:30Having a very interesting point of view, but also hearing accounts of people that have seen the partition.
00:38And more and more, as I started shooting in Punjab, I heard more and more of these accounts
00:44of how people remember the events around the partition of India 70 years later, 78 years later, 60 years later,
00:54you know.
00:54And then I saw that the narrative has changed.
00:58What people remember now is different from what they remembered exactly at partition, then 20 years later.
01:05Then, you know, there was this thing that came to me that people actually remember the tenderness of their times
01:15more.
01:15Like when I speak to anybody who has been through partitioning, now very few of them are alive.
01:22And in a way, this film, Maibafa Samga, is a homage, a tribute to those people that have gone through
01:28partition.
01:29So, when I hear anybody's account, there's always a smile, a glint of happiness in their eyes when they talk
01:38about those times.
01:39You know, they talk about something which was very personal, very, those are the only, the personal stories, was the
01:47one love that they could not get over.
01:51Which was so small, which was so immature, which is not so big or tragic or, you know, earth shattering.
01:58But something personal is something that people have remembered, even when at that age, they have forgotten many other things.
02:07So, that was very inspiring for me and I feel that the story of the partition being looked at from
02:17a 78 years old lens, in retrospective lens, it was very interesting.
02:26It was very romantic, cinematic, beautiful, very textural, and very, very extremely significant to this country, to us as a
02:36people.
02:37Because all around us, there are people that have not only gone through partition in their families, but also some
02:46of the other part of, some of the other aspect of migration and displacement.
02:53Yeah, true.
02:54There's a Hindustan, Mina, I feel that you, in your office, if you just take a call and ask people
03:00where their grandfathers were, you will find different parts of this country.
03:06And they've all come at different times for different reasons and usually nobody wants to leave their home.
03:11Yeah.
03:12But they have left their homes and then made their fortunes.
03:15So, I feel that migration and displacement is such a universal story.
03:20And it is best represented by, you know, the story of the partition.
03:26Yeah, true.
03:26But not with the usual bands and flourishes, but with the retrospective romantic lens of 70-80 years later.
03:38And you spoke about the texture of the film.
03:42Now, I've always loved the Imtiyas Ali frames in all your films.
03:46Oh, true.
03:47No, there's a very fine fragrance that's there in all your frames, be it Tamasha, be it Rockstar, any of
03:52your films.
03:53For this film, I see very clean, elegant architecture captured in the lens.
03:58In addition to the costumes of that specific era.
04:02Could you please walk me through that process of putting together the production design and the costume for the lens?
04:08So, we followed the memory, the images in the memory of Ishar.
04:14So, Ishar Singh Garibald is the character who is 95 years old.
04:21And now, retrospectively, he is thinking about those beautiful times of his class when he was in college.
04:30So, there is a certain hue, a tone that memory achieves.
04:38You know, it might even be different from how the light and the texture was at the time when it
04:43happened.
04:44But remembered 78 years later, it acquires a rose tint.
04:49Yeah, true.
04:50And that is how I think the images of this film.
04:53Very consciously, we have gone after how memory, how a happy memory feels like.
05:01So, we have chased that image in this film and we have brought it about by a certain type of
05:06lensing, by a certain type of light and costume design and the use of many, many, you know, on-camera
05:16techniques.
05:18Could you please reveal any of those techniques?
05:21Because I remember talking to K.O. Mohan and Sir back in 2017 for Javheri Med.
05:25And he was like, we enhanced the natural lighting to shoot that film and very less of artificial lighting was
05:31used.
05:32So, for this film particularly, how was it?
05:34So, what we have done is that we have had certain lensing styles.
05:38And for, okay, so for production design, you know, when you remember memory, things in memory, past 20 years back,
05:4530 years back, there is no clutter.
05:48There is a cleanness.
05:50Clean, yeah, correct.
05:51You know, you remember fewer things than had existed.
05:54Yeah.
05:55So, we have used that in production design.
05:57Oh, nice.
05:58We have casted faces, even the casting of people like Sharwari and Vedan.
06:04So, casted faces that can give an impression of these people could have been in 1947, you know, and then
06:11styling them because we worked with a team very, very closely, Shoma and the look team.
06:18And she called the costume team, with so many references trying to create those faces that we see in old
06:25photographs in albums.
06:27You know, that how are people dressing up in Punjab in the 1940s?
06:32And then what we discovered, firstly, in the research was quite different from what we expected.
06:37For instance, people were very westernized, more westernized than today, because it was a part of the West.
06:45I mean, they were, their teachers were English, they were listening to English songs, you know.
06:49So, you would see that in old films and all this Chin Chin Choo and that kind of thing, there's
06:54a certain type of music and hairstyle.
06:56So, we went after that and even the light of the memory is a certain different color.
07:05So, we imposed that, we brought that out and that is how we have created and the colors of the
07:11shirts because all kinds of dyes were not even available.
07:15So, we went into the research and discovered what dyes were available and we have clothes that were authentic to
07:22that period.
07:23So, everything put together makes that one frame.
07:26And we've had a lensing which, like, you have a certain type of a lensing when you look at, when
07:33you imagine your own memory.
07:34And we tried to create that by use of lens and by use of filters, we created some special filters
07:41for ourselves.
07:42We sometimes have even done this whole thing of bringing elements of the past into the present time to kind
07:50of simulate what the old man must be thinking.
07:58And moving forward, I'm always fascinated by how you decide to work between Ritamda and A.R. Rahman sir, because
08:06with both of them, you have terrific track record.
08:09So, for May Wapas Aunga, what compelled you to gravitate more towards Rahman sir?
08:16Well, I felt that there is a music of Punjab or the music of India of a certain era, but
08:26it is for a contemporary film.
08:30So, it's like you had to be true to that era, but you had to be extremely relevant and entertaining
08:39for the present time.
08:41So, for this, I wanted to go with A.R. Rahman, also because I wanted to be authentic to the
08:50Western music that was going on at that point of time.
08:53There was swing and dance, and then there was other styles of Western music that was going on, and that
09:02was mixing very seamlessly with the folk music of the time.
09:06So, we tried to do that in one song, you know, so there was a lot of that kind of
09:10experiment, which is trying to recreate, all of that music is the basis of the recreation of a certain era.
09:17Yeah, yeah.
09:18To make you feel as though you are living that time and you are seeing that romance.
09:24So, that is why Rahman, I feel.
09:34So, I was asking that, you know, in one of the previous questions, you said that, you know, you have
09:39read many of the authors from India, from Punjab, you know, that kind of have shaped the contours of your
09:46thinking in terms of storytelling, in terms of perspective towards life.
09:50Now, this one thing which I have keenly observed in your films is that, you know, the tone of the
09:55language is like, it's pitch perfect, not a hair here and there.
09:59To catch that cinematic language and then to see around what's happening, the way the language of, the language used
10:06in our cinema that has changed for the screen.
10:08How do you kind of make your way around that and what are your opinion on, you know, certain kind
10:13of languages being used in cinema, which may not be very, you know, polished in a certain way and still,
10:20but they are used to convey a message.
10:22So, I am not judgmental as an audience member.
10:26I feel that if we live in a democracy, we might as well let people decide what they want to
10:32watch.
10:32And I feel cinema is a very democratic medium and people will go and buy a ticket and watch a
10:39film that they want to.
10:40And we are, nobody is in, like, I feel that nobody has the authority to say what is good or
10:46bad for them.
10:47It's like they choose their own government, they choose their own cinema.
10:51So, I'm not the one to say, and I know that there are a lot of films which have dialogue
10:56that is shocking or dialogue that can be disapproved by people.
11:02And I feel that as a natural process of deselection, that kind of dialogue will go away from cinema.
11:08Because the audience really decides what they want to watch.
11:13So, and what option do I have, but to present through my movies what I have, you know, what I
11:24don't have, I can't imbibe.
11:26Got it.
11:26And I feel that the range of, like, I watch all kinds of films.
11:34But what I can make is in a certain way and what comes to me naturally, what is personal to
11:40me, just like in the film, has the most power.
11:43And that is what goes out.
11:44So, it comes out in a certain way.
11:47And thankfully, I feel you are saying that it does not come up in an offensive manner.
11:53And I'm just happy.
11:56Okay, okay.
11:57And moving forward, you know, the world currently is going through some very testing times, if I put it modestly.
12:03There's a war in West Asia that's going on.
12:05There's a war in Russia, Ukraine that's going on.
12:09In all of these, you know, in a dystopian world like this, the contrast of love and to be that
12:16storyteller who masters the art of storytelling in love, what's that like for you?
12:20So, this is the time, and to answer this question, I will say, I'll talk about Kya Kamal Hai, the
12:27song.
12:28The song Kya Kamal Hai is a contemporary look at the events of the partition and the displacement that got
12:39caused there.
12:40And the pain and links it to migration and displacement, which is the biggest story of the world of the
12:49century.
12:52And look at all of the migration and displacement and what is happening around us in the world.
12:59Yeah.
13:01That is the occasion for the song.
13:04We very proudly presented that as the first song of the film.
13:09Because Kya Kamal Hai is a song about hope and despair.
13:14It is about reaching out to humanity at a time where everybody seems to be in crisis.
13:19To say that all humanity is linked.
13:24You might, you might, you know, throw bombs at each other, but fact of the matter is that nobody is
13:33going to gain out of this.
13:35Yeah.
13:36To try to bring an emotion of hope and emotion of togetherness is the attempt.
13:43And it is coming because that's the story of the film.
13:45It's a contemporary look.
13:47It's Nirvair Garival played by Diljeet Dosanj going through the story of his grandfather's story of romance during partition times.
13:56And through that discovering all of those things about the partition, which are extremely relevant today to his life, to
14:05his human condition and to what is happening in the world.
14:08So the Kya Kamal Hai really is like a prayer.
14:13It's like a romantic kind of motive or motive of hope and togetherness in this time.
14:30And it links, as I'm saying, the story of the partition to the displacement, which is the theme of this
14:36century.
14:38As is seen in the news every day to day, unfortunately.
14:43And this is when...
14:44Sorry, please, please go ahead.
14:46No, no, no, you go ahead.
14:47No, no, please, please, please.
14:48So I felt that, you know, we crossed an entire movie of working together, which the movie was a musical.
14:56It was about a musical star.
14:58Diljeet was that musical star.
14:59Diljeet is in life a musical star.
15:01And Diljeet never sang a song with Rehman.
15:05Because Diljeet's voice was the voice of Chamkila.
15:08And Chamkila was singing.
15:09And the voice of those songs, which were the author-backed songs, could not be the voice of Chamkila.
15:16You know, so it was like a no-go situation.
15:20We passed through that entire film like that.
15:23Now, in this film, we have this one song, Kya Kamalya, which Diljeet is singing for Rehman.
15:30And we are all very, very excited about this, which Ishad is writing, of course.
15:35My longest companion in this industry is really...
15:39And so we very, very proudly present it.
15:43And very happily, more than proudly, very happily will present it.
15:49Okay.
15:50And taking this forward, you know, given the cyclical nature to everything in this world, you know, where we start
15:56off 100, 200, 500 years, we come back to that very same place.
16:01Do you think artwork like Kya Kamalya has a certain inevitability to it in times of crisis, such as these,
16:07given the cyclical nature of a species or of Earth?
16:10Absolutely.
16:10Absolutely.
16:11There is an inevitability.
16:13And there is an inevitability where you go through, like, as one says that if one who forgets history is
16:21condemned to repeat it.
16:24And so one must take less and be better, hopefully.
16:31And oftentimes one is not, unfortunately.
16:35Which is why one has to, like, if battles happen again and again, if the same cruelty of history happens
16:43eclically, then people like you and me also arise and put some honey into the bitterness.
16:51That is our job as artists.
16:54Yeah.
16:54100%.
16:55To bring hope, point towards the silver lining in the depths when there are clouds really.
17:04So, yeah, so this is also our attempt.
17:07And how do we do it?
17:09We do it by talking about stories which connect you to your own heart.
17:15You know, stories that open your heart, make you perhaps see yourself as the brother of anybody else who is
17:25in the world.
17:28But, at the end of it, a film is a film, a story is a story.
17:31This is a very simple story of partition time, remembered 78 years later.
17:37So, I was saying that, you know, I observed this one thing about you, that, you know, you are extremely
17:42emotionally intelligent as a filmmaker.
17:45You are in total control of or in regulation of the emotions that you want to touch upon through your
17:49characters, through your story.
17:52And partly that's where I guess your strength as a storyteller for love comes from, if you consider all your
17:57films in your filmography.
18:00To surrender to love, in your opinion, knowing very well that, you know, it has an equal probability of going
18:06either ways.
18:0650% probability of going right or going wrong.
18:10To surrender to love in that sense, is it a sign of weakness or is it a sign of strength,
18:15in your opinion?
18:23There are other ways to process this decision.
18:29It's not only a sign of weakness or strength.
18:32Sometimes you are so weak that you listen to your natural instinct.
18:38Sometimes you are so weak that you just have to follow your heart.
18:41You have no control.
18:43Is that a weakness or a strength?
18:45You know, one might ask.
18:46So, rather than talk about that, I don't know whether to say whether it's a sign of weakness or strength.
18:55But it's a sign of connecting with yourself, of turning in the direction of your heart.
19:01I feel that is a decision of love.
19:04And I know that there is a, it's not a 100% probability of success, but it's our best chance.
19:12Yeah.
19:12Because if, if you go, if you turn away from it, then there is very little probability of success.
19:21True.
19:22There is no chance of success when you yourself are not with you.
19:26I think a process, a decision toward, to go towards love, connects a person to himself or herself.
19:35And the power that then therefore emanates is more.
19:40A person who is passionate can work for 24 hours a day, for instance.
19:46So, I feel that the probability, just in terms of probability, one is safer to go in the direction of
19:53love.
19:57And moving forward, this is your second collaboration with Diljeet.
20:01Having an actor like him, who's so connected with his roots.
20:05That's one layer of his personality.
20:07Then there's this another layer of him being a global superstar, being a massive rich across the globe.
20:13And then he's an actor plus a singer as well, you know.
20:16So, quite a lot of depth he comes with as an artist.
20:19To have him in your story, how does it, how does it add value to the entire project?
20:24Diljeet comes with a lot of depth.
20:25He comes with a lot of purity.
20:27He comes with a lot of soul.
20:29And he comes with a lot of society.
20:33A certain humanity.
20:36He's very connected to his roots.
20:38He represents certain people also, you know.
20:42And he is an actor.
20:44It is just, he's such a remarkable actor.
20:49And one doesn't even understand how he is like that.
20:54He's just, I think, kept himself very, very clean as an artist.
21:00And he believes he's not even an actor.
21:04He says, I'm not an actor.
21:09But he's got every award, that one.
21:13He's been nominated to the Emmys.
21:15So, he's an actor of that category.
21:20My first interest, of course, is the actor.
21:25Which is why I would like to work with him.
21:31And then, I feel that there are so many aspects, as you said, to Diljeet.
21:38And we want to bring everything in to the work that one does.
21:43In this film, it is even more eminently possible than the previous one.
21:48For once, he couldn't sing.
21:51For one, he couldn't sing a song of Rehman.
21:53But he sang all the songs in Chankila's voice.
21:55But also, in who he is today, contemporarily, what his concerns are.
22:02All of that makes him a part of the soul of this film.
22:07It's a part of the emotion of this film.
22:10Like, he is just speaking from his guts in this film.
22:16It's like that.
22:18In Amar Singh Chankula, obviously, that was also a part of his roots.
22:23But what he is saying now is contemporary and more valid.
22:28Because it's also about now.
22:30Yeah.
22:32Okay.
22:32And taking that further, good that you mentioned this, you know.
22:36He says that he's not a good actor.
22:38But he is a terrific actor.
22:39Like, everyone of us knows that.
22:41This kind of makes me draw parallels between him and Robbie Williams.
22:45You know, he was also like, every line after line, Robbie Williams.
22:49He might just say it in the moment.
22:51But, you know, deep down or back, at the back of it, when you analyze those lines or whatever he
22:56has said, it's deeply impactful.
23:00To have an artist like him, you know, spearhead your story.
23:04As a storyteller, how does it open up new avenues for you to have him as a spontaneous performer?
23:10Because it makes the job very challenging because it makes it easier.
23:17And you are at an anvil where you feel that you can communicate more.
23:21You can communicate very easily.
23:25The ease with which, like, there is an ease in communication that I have with him, to begin with.
23:32You know, that you say half the sentence, he gets the rest of it.
23:35And then he comes with so much.
23:38And, you know, and that goes down because he's coming from a place of purity.
23:43He's also more connected to the audience.
23:45People can get him.
23:47People understand what he's going through on screen, you know.
23:51So that is a vehicle for me, you know.
23:54It's very, then, therefore, to work with an actor like that, it is so transparent that it makes it easy.
24:01But it also makes, it becomes a challenge that, you know, am I giving everything to this demon that he
24:11can't chew, you know.
24:14And, you know, the worst thing that one can do with an actor is to underuse him.
24:20Yeah, correct.
24:21You know, so one has to be careful about that.
24:25So with Diljeet, also the same thing.
24:26But I am very glad that this is so much a part of his psychosomatic, cultural, social, historical existence of
24:38this role that he does as Nirvair Gurewal.
24:42And lastly, I have two questions.
24:44First question is my editorial team has requested me to ask you.
24:49How will the impact of Durendar now set new grounds for Hindi cinema, if not Indian cinema in its entirety?
24:56No, I feel, so I'm firstly, as a filmmaker, I'm very happy when a film does very, very well.
25:05I'm very happy, especially when people come to the theatre, perhaps again and again to watch a film.
25:11As I said to you earlier that, you know, it's the people that choose the kind of cinema that they
25:16want.
25:17There cannot be any, like, it's not any more complicated than that.
25:22And I don't feel that the working of a certain type of film excludes the working of any other type
25:28of film.
25:28Other type of film, yeah, 100%.
25:29This I've seen all my life.
25:31People say, oh, you know, love stories are going on, then it's going to be an action film.
25:38That's not the case.
25:39Correct.
25:39You know, when Sholei was coming, people were saying Sholei won't work.
25:43When Durendar was coming, I'm sure a lot of people were saying Sholei won't work.
25:47Happened with Sayyar as well.
25:48People were like, love story won't work.
25:50Love stories are not working, that too, with new people.
25:53So the point is, people want to watch good cinema.
25:57And when any good cinema works, every good cinema, every filmmaker is internally very happy.
26:04Thank God this worked.
26:05This means people are, you know, still in with the concept of coming to a cinema and cinema hall and
26:14watching a film.
26:15You know, we are bringing people closer.
26:18Durendar brought people closer to the theater and I'm very glad about that.
26:21This was my response.
26:23And Sayyara did the same and so many films did the same.
26:26And I'm very glad for all of the films that succeeded.
26:33And there's this one song from your film, Jabheri Met.
26:36I mean, I love all the songs from all your films.
26:38But there's this one song, which is Safar, sung by Rajit Singh.
26:42I love the music video as well of that song that you later shot with Shahrukh sir and Preetamda and
26:46Nirshad sir.
26:47I spoke with Preetamda a few months ago and he was like, he wanted to make it more blues.
26:51But Ariki programmed it in a certain way that he wanted, he drifted towards that texture and that style of
26:56tonal energy of the song.
26:57Ariki programmed it in certain.
27:00But that was his side of the story.
27:01I want to know your side of the story, particularly with the music video.
27:05I love the lighting in the music video.
27:06You know, when there's a softie behind SRK sir.
27:10And a very soft light, very soft textures, the costumes, everything so well.
27:13What was it for you like and how did you put it all together?
27:16So that was a very blues song when we conceptualized it and when we were like singing it and even
27:23before the lyrics were written.
27:26And I remember that there was, so it was very, very bluesy.
27:36It was, and then later on, it became a little different, but still it retains an element of, you know,
27:45country means blues, that kind of a zone.
27:47And it's a very singing on the guitar kind of a song.
27:50And it's also very here and now.
27:53I feel that this line that Rishad has written, that I'm neither, I don't belong to where I come from
28:05and I don't belong to where I'm going.
28:14And it's like the state of the, you know, the contemporary human.
28:24One feels that one is always in a travel.
28:26It's in a state of flux that we exist in.
28:28So I feel that it's a very interesting song.
28:36I really love taking the shots of that song because there was a sense of great association, you know, whenever
28:43we were shooting with, like there are some shots at the railway station, I think in Budapest, where he's just
28:52sitting and we are shooting and a train is coming.
28:55You know, that kind of shot, I feel it was so nice and very fulfilling to take those shots.
29:00Yeah, absolutely.
29:02Okay.
29:03And lastly, you know, to be a filmmaker who has so much of critical acclaim, so much of love from
29:10the audience, but to work in a highly commercial industry like a Hindi film industry, proper commercial cinema, what it
29:16takes to fight and to preserve the art within you and to fight the market forces to not, you know,
29:22let them penetrate into what you want to say.
29:25Or the essence of a story.
29:27Well, I feel that all these aspects, all these people that are supposed to be enemies of each other, for
29:34instance, the financier and the writer and the creative artist are actually pointing in the same direction.
29:43They are pointing in the direction of popularity.
29:48So the financier wants his money back.
29:53And as a director, I feel that he must get his money back because that will ensure that we make
29:59more and more films.
30:01Yeah.
30:01Commercial success is important and per se, but more than even that, if I want my movies to be liked
30:12by people, to be popular among people, it will be commercial.
30:15Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, by nature, by nature, it will be commercial.
30:20So I feel that one, and also, I must also say that the most artistic works of art have a
30:35huge amount of commerciality in them.
30:39Yeah, yeah.
30:40You know, when Shakespeare wrote his plays, they were, you know, the fact that, how commercial has it been?
30:48Like hundreds and hundreds of years later, we are still making them, you know, Vishalji makes a film, like every
30:56couple of years on.
30:57So the point is that, but is it artistic?
31:01Yes, of course it is.
31:03And so the point is that artistic is not remote.
31:08Artistic is not obscure.
31:10Artistic is like when you connect so strongly with yourself that whatever you whisper becomes a loud noise and everybody
31:17hears it and everybody feels attracted.
31:20Yeah.
31:20It is the most personal, you know, let me remind you of this song from Piasa, Ye Mailon Ki Takhto,
31:27Ki Tajon Ki Duniyan.
31:28Yeah.
31:28How softly he begins to sing it.
31:30Yeah.
31:32And how the whole auditorium, the whole auditorium is attracted to it because it comes from his heart.
31:40It is his artistic expression and it is commercial.
31:43So I feel that we sometimes fight these battles.
31:48We are together and, you know, a financier or a producer does not assume that they themselves will think of
31:56those creative ideas that will make the film good.
31:58Nobody wants to make a bad film.
32:00Everybody wants to make a popular film.
32:02So I feel we're all friends going in the same direction, but we do different jobs and we must respect
32:07those different jobs.
32:08Yeah.
32:10Perfect.
32:11So with that, we have reached the end of this conversation.
32:13Kuch aisi baat jo mudse poochni nahe gahi ho, ya aap kuch kena chate to aap kaya sakte hai.
32:17Nah, aapse baat kar bhi bada achcha laga and a lot of things came through and I hope that you
32:24got all your answers.
32:26Yes, yes, 100%, 100%.
32:27Everything covered.
32:28And I hope that people like this film.
32:30I'm sure, I'm sure.
32:33I'm sure people will swarm to the theatres in huge numbers and unprecedented footfalls in the theatres.
32:38Lots of them.
32:40So on that note, thank you so much, sir.
32:41And I wish all the best for my papa sa hunga.
32:43Please take care and all the best.
32:45Same thing.
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