Across two decades, the storytelling by Imtiaz Ali has been a gallery of men who are romantic without the conventional way. They have searched for love through relationships, journeys or memories. There is intensity in the love that he feels. A hero who may not be a swagger but often selfish or confused and inconveniently or conveniently love for him is a beautiful experience.  

His film Main Vaapas Aaunga is his new entrant joined by Vedang Raina. To understand what this storytelling means, lets look back at the lover boys portrayed by Imtiaz Ali who have come before Raina. 

With every generation it seems a hero does not necessary just fall in love but the film is all about Love.

For example, the dejected depressed Shahid Kapoor learns to live through the subtle romance he felt with Geet essayed by Kareena Kapoor in Jab We Met. 

The romantic hero Aditya Kashyap is a man who had given up on his life. A wealthy, young and educated man who was emotionally exhausted and love had no meaning in his life. But his character is memorable as he gradually discovers the desire to find his own self. He finds a reason to live among Geet’s chaos, the courage to love and bring back the romance in his life. The story gave a subtle ending that man is often before he becomes whole again. 

Saif Ali Khan as Jay in Love Aaj Kal is a modern practical and a man who believes in relationships that fit into a life’s schedule. However, the film reveals the fragility of this logic as he portrays through this film that love refuses to obey timelines. It lingers and complicates nut the older love tale suggests that love is timeless in parallel to Jai’s love tale. 

Ranbir Kapoor the artist, a Rockstar in Tamasha as Jordan. He has hunger for love and recognition that he turns destructive with his struggles in his crisis. The suffocation that he feels and eventually releases it when he finds the artist in himself that he must accept his own self before he commits himself to another person. The characters shown by Imtiaz is a hero who is a wandering seeker for love which takes a philosophical turn through the film’s storytelling. 

Avinash Tiwary in Laila Majnu is a classical idea of romance. In the film the hero does not evolve in love, instead he dissolves completely into love and is obsessive, spiritual and it ends in a tragic way. The performance by Avinash Tiwary reminded the audience that Hindi cinema still has that space for beintehaa Mohabbat. The love that has no boundaries. 

Diljit Dosanjh in Amar Singh Chamkila plays the titular character as he portrays himself as the man adorned by crowds yet he has his own inner demons that haunt him. Romance is not what exactly defines in this artis but it is his hunger to perform.   Imtiaz Ali has shaped this artistic hunger and the public scrutiny in a celebrity that its also rooted in reality. Like all Imtiaz Ali love stories, this one too has that dangerous love and the story that meets and inevitable tragic end. 

The most recent and the currently coming up is Main Wapa Aaunga with Vedang Raina. Stepping up into the lineage of the promise that refuses to fade.  The story is of a young Punjabi man separated from his lover in the violence of Partition. He is reminded of the memories of the bygone era and his promise to return is what the film starts off with but what makes this casting is intriguing as the actor here is unpredictable. Vedang here arrives like a fresh slate unlike his predecessors, allowing his performance to unburderned itself as he carries the responsibility of the character who after decades of absence of love in his life, believes in building with the art of longing. 

Imtiaz Ali in the era that celebrates detachment, his cinema continue to believe in those who dared to love deeply through searching, stumbling and sincerity that often has caused everything as a relentless traveller in the heart that’s. what his films talk about in the narratives.