Imtiaz Ali’s Main Vaapas Aaunga, Ranveer Singh’s Dhurandhar And Loss Of Home, Identity

There is a particular kind of grief that cinema often struggles to capture. It is not the grief of death, failure or heartbreak. It is the grief of losing a home – not necessarily one made with bricks and walls, but the loss of a place that has shaped you. A place where your memories live, where your language sounds natural and where your identity feels unquestioned.

And despite being polar opposites in terms of tonality, two of the most talked about films in recent times have explored precisely this emotion.  featuring Vedang Raina/ Naseeruddin Shah as Keenu at different stages in life and the emotionally charged narrative from   centred on Jaskirat, are both rooted in displacement. And yet while they begin from a similar emotional place, they ultimately arrive at very different destinations. At their core, both films are about people who lose more than geography – they lose certainty about who they are.

One of the most profound ideas shared by both  and Dhurandhar is that home is inseparable from identity. For Keenu, in Main Vaapas Aaunga, displacement arrives through the trauma of Partition. His separation is not voluntary, but is permanent. He not only leaves behind a house or neighbourhood, but an entire world. He loses the streets he grew up in, the people he loved, the language of everyday life and the rhythms of existence all become inaccessible overnight. Keenu spends his life carrying the hope of return, even when history makes that return impossible.

 , on the other hand, has a journey in Dhurandhar which is different but equally rooted in dislocation. His separation is not only from a place. Rather, he is separated from a version of himself with his life unfolding amid conflict, secrecy and the demands of a larger mission. His loss is tied to identity itself and the person he once was becomes increasingly difficult to recover. For both, home is an anchor and when that anchor is removed, they are left searching for themselves.

A striking similarity between the two films, however, is their understanding of estrangement. For Keenu, he becomes a stranger, because history draws a border around him. The world he knows disappears and even when he physically survives, a part of him remains trapped in time. This is a lived reality for many who lived through the Partition. The tragedy was not merely displacement, but the feeling of becoming foreign to places that once felt like extensions of the self.

Ranveer Singh’s Jaskirat experiences estrangement in a different manner. His distance is psychological rather than geographical with the demands being placed upon him creating a gap between who he is and who he must become.

However, in both narratives, the protagonists are haunted by absence. Jaskirat and Keenu are both surrounded by people and movement, yet emotionally they remain disconnected from the worlds they once inhabited. The loneliness becomes one of the defining emotional notes in both narratives.

Furthermore, what makes both films especially powerful is their relationship with memory. For Keenu, memory becomes survival. Everything he was dragged away from continues to exits inside him – including his beloved. The film suggests that while borders can create physical boundaries, they cannot erase remembrance. Memories become a form of resistance against historical erasure. An aged Keenu (Naseeruddin Shah) carries decades of accumulated longing and trauma and memory refuses to fade.

Jaskirat’s memories, however, function differently. He does not preserve a lost homeland, he preserves a lost self. They remind him of the person he once was before circumstances transformed him. In Dhurandhar, memory becomes a bridge connecting the individual to an identity that is constantly under threat.

Despite their thematic overlap, Main Vaapas Aaunga and Dhurandhar are ultimately telling different stories. And the most significant difference, ultimately, lies in the source of their displacement as well. Keenu is a victim of historical forces far larger than him. The Partition is an event that reshaped millions of lives. His tragedy emerges from collective trauma, with his story belonging to an entire generation that was uprooted. Thus the emotional weight of Main Vaapas Aaunga therefore feels deeply communal.

Jaskirat’s journey, meanwhile, though under the grab of national security, is more individualised. His conflict is rooted in personal transformation, duty and the psychological cost of the life he leads. While his experiences may resonate with broader themes of sacrifice and belonging, they remain centred on the internal struggles of a single character. Where Keenu loses a homeland, Jaskirat risks losing himself.

The distinction though subtle, fundamentally changes the emotional texture of both narratives.

Vedang Raina/ Naseeruddin Shah’s Keenu is defined by longing. Everything in Main Vaapas Aaunga revolves around yearning – for home, for family, for unfinished conversations with the beloved, a promise perhaps – and for a life interrupted by history. The film is powered by nostalgia and grief. Ranveer Singh’s Jaskirat, on the other hand, is defined by sacrifice. His is a story, less about returning to a place and more about enduring the consequences of choices and responsibilities. The emotional burden comes from what must be surrendered in service of a greater purpose. Where one character looks backward, the other is forced to keep moving forward.

Perhaps the reason both films resonated so strongly is because the questions they ask remain relevant. What happens when people lose the places that define them? Can identity survive displacement? How much of who we are is tied to geography, community and memory? In an era marked by migration, conflict and change, these questions feel more urgent than ever. And where Main Vaapas Aaunga explores them through the lens of Partition – one of the greatest human displacements in modern history, Dhurandhar approaches them through the journey of a man whose circumstances force him to sacrifice parts of himself. Yet both arrive at a similar truth.

Home is not just a location, it is a box full of memories, relationships and identity. When people lose a home, they lose a piece of their identity. And that is why Keenu’s longing feels so heartbreaking and why Jaskirat’s struggle feels so poignant. Their stories remind us that the deepest wounds are often invisible. They are the wounds left behind when a person can no longer return – not only to a place, but to the version of themselves that once existed there.

Main Vaapas Aaunga and Dhurandhar are not just films about displacement, they are songs about the fragile relationship between home and identity, and the enduring human desire to find one’s way back to both. But do all displaced find their home in the end? Therein lies the poignancy of lived reality.