Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Anupama Chopra sits down with Imtiaz Ali at the first edition of the Nilaya Monsoon Film Festival for a deep dive into Main Vaapas Aaunga, the filmmaker's Partition love story that turned into one of the year's most remarkable word-of-mouth successes. Imtiaz decodes the film's most heart-wrenching moments, from Naseeruddin Shah's beard-fixing gesture on his deathbed to the chaandbali motif suggested by co-writer Nayanika Mahtani, and reveals how the hundreds of Partition survivor stories he heard, each anchored in a tree, a doll, or a beloved face, became the reason he had to make this film.
The conversation travels from Imtiaz's childhood home in Jamshedpur, where an unplanned visit left him in tears, to the anxious first week after release, when Shekhar Kapur called with the story of Masoom's miraculous turnaround and told him not to worry. Imtiaz also opens up about the director fraternity that watched his rough cut two months early, why Anurag Kashyap's daily calls trimmed ten minutes from the film, why his cinema has no villains, and the "return gift" of a film he now wants to make for the audience that gave him so much.
#ImtiazAli #MainVaapasAaunga #THRIndia
00:00 Introduction
06:26 The heartbreaking go-away gesture
13:02 Weeping at his childhood home
19:46 Shekhar Kapur's call about Masoom
25:58 Keeping faith in the audience
32:22 Why his films have no villains
39:09 Anurag Kashyap's ten-minute cut
Anupama Chopra sits down with Imtiaz Ali at the first edition of the Nilaya Monsoon Film Festival for a deep dive into Main Vaapas Aaunga, the filmmaker's Partition love story that turned into one of the year's most remarkable word-of-mouth successes. Imtiaz decodes the film's most heart-wrenching moments, from Naseeruddin Shah's beard-fixing gesture on his deathbed to the chaandbali motif suggested by co-writer Nayanika Mahtani, and reveals how the hundreds of Partition survivor stories he heard, each anchored in a tree, a doll, or a beloved face, became the reason he had to make this film.
The conversation travels from Imtiaz's childhood home in Jamshedpur, where an unplanned visit left him in tears, to the anxious first week after release, when Shekhar Kapur called with the story of Masoom's miraculous turnaround and told him not to worry. Imtiaz also opens up about the director fraternity that watched his rough cut two months early, why Anurag Kashyap's daily calls trimmed ten minutes from the film, why his cinema has no villains, and the "return gift" of a film he now wants to make for the audience that gave him so much.
#ImtiazAli #MainVaapasAaunga #THRIndia
00:00 Introduction
06:26 The heartbreaking go-away gesture
13:02 Weeping at his childhood home
19:46 Shekhar Kapur's call about Masoom
25:58 Keeping faith in the audience
32:22 Why his films have no villains
39:09 Anurag Kashyap's ten-minute cut
