Was it Geet, who taught us that life has a funny way of putting us back on track? Or Jordan, eating alone in Rockstar, carrying the kind of loneliness that words can never fully explain? Maybe it was Ved from Tamasha, trying to break free from a life that never truly felt like his, or Veera from Highway, discovering freedom only after losing everything familiar.

That is perhaps the magic of Imtiaz Ali's cinema. His characters rarely feel fictional. They feel like people we've been, people we've loved, or versions of ourselves we've quietly hidden away.

But long before he became the filmmaker who gave us these unforgettable stories, Imtiaz had one of his own to........

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