A rollercoaster ride through Imtiaz Ali's notion of love

Love stories in cinema, especially Bollywood, have often moved along a familiar rhythm — boy meets girl, a hurdle appears, love struggles, and eventually triumph comes along. But it is perhaps through Imtiaz Ali’s lens that audiences have learned to feel romance in a more layered, aching, and profoundly human way. He made us understand what happens after you fall in love, after the sweet vacation ends and above all, after the fairy tale fades, leaving two individuals face life in its rawest form.

The Imtiaz Ali's school of love: Longing, depth, and life beyond fairy tales

The filmmaker’s latest venture Main Wapas Aaunga is an ode to not just love but the sheer ache for longing. It is through human’s most vulnerable emotions that this film reimagines a history that left a scar on millions of souls.

Love, through Imtiaz’s lens, is often a question: Does that achingly beautiful feeling disappear when the person does, or does it continue to exist beyond their absence? It is rarely about the notion of togetherness. 

Take Jab We Met for example. Geet, being the chirpy flamboyant person, has this hidden emotional side that she masks with her vibrant aura. And her relationship with Aditya only succeeds after both the characters evolve individually, bringing a sense of reality to the table.

Then there’s Tamasha, a film that unfolds thousands of emotions through undisputed arcs of the characters fighting their own internal fights. The fun magical escape in Corsica where Ved and Tara fall in love, soon gives way to the monotony of everyday life, forcing Ved to confront an exhausted version of himself. There again, the pain of reality and the struggle of letting go, struck a chord.  

One of the key aspects the filmmaker delves on, is how love is capable of both creating and destroying a person. In Laila Majnu and Rockstar the romance is intense, deliberate and powerful. Both the films could have been a cute story of boy meets girl but how can love exist without pain in Imtiaz’s storyline?

The films embrace the ache of separation and celebrate a love that becomes more than any relationship can ever be. In another life, Laila finally lives happily with Qais which is showcased through a dreamy sequence, bringing forth a scene that audiences craved for but got at the expense of death.

And now with his latest film, Main Wapas Aaunga, he delves into the real-life horrors of the society that breaks apart a love which should never have had to fight for its existence. At the heart of the story lies a simple promise: ‘I will return’ which becomes a beacon of hope for those left waiting and a resolution the audience deeply craves for.

At the end, perhaps nothing captures the filmmaker's understanding of love better than his own dialogue from Main Wapas Aaunga: "Yeh pyaar zeher ki tarah hota hai, pata hai? Iski ek bhi boond andar reh gayi na, toh yeh aakhri samay mein chain se marne bhi nahi deta."

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