Imtiaz Ali reflects on how today’s swipe-right generation craves epic, lifelong passion yet remains trapped in constant yearning. In a candid interview, he contrasts fleeting digital connections with a love that endures 78 years, a theme at the heart of his Partition-era drama Main Vaapas Aaunga, starring Naseeruddin Shah, Diljit Dosanjh, Sharvari and Vedaang Raina.
“How do you love someone you haven’t met for 78 years and explain that to a Tinder generation?” is a question only someone like Imtiaz Ali, who has explored love on screen in its most profound sense, could credibly answer. The filmmaker believes that while youngsters wish for the kind of love that lasts, they remain stuck in a cycle of yearning because they keep wanting more.
In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter India, Ali said that “it’s almost as though they have it in front of them, and they feel they’re looking for it, but when they touch it, it disappears,” setting the premise behind what he understands love in today's Tinder generation to be.
“They are definitely seeking the kind of passion that sustains over such a long period of time. In that you could relax, you could luxuriate, you could feel the presence of somebody else, you could feel this warm hug around you for 78 years. Every youngster is yearning for that.”
This is the kind of love Ali depicts in his upcoming period-drama, Main Vaapas Aaunga, set during the Partition of India, starring Naseeruddin Shah, Diljit Dosanjh, Sharvari, and Vedaang Raina. It uses the lenses of nostalgia, longing, and memory to explore how love can transcend time, even when one is separated from it at its pinnacle.
“They are yearning more and more, because they are more social, interactive, and optioned,” Ali says, comparing the kind of love the present generation wishes for to that of a "tragic romantic." "I feel they are more lonely than the previous generations," he adds, explaining that this loneliness is only fueled by a cycle of yearning when they realize "they don't feel the passion that they feel they want" even when there is so much available around them.
Ali believes that it is this dichotomy of love between the present and past generations that makes creating films like Main Vaapas Aaunga so crucial, because the story of Jiya and Keenu, played by Sharvari and Raina, reminds us just how beautifully layered, yet simple and sustainable love can be.