India, Aug. 15 -- F or Vedang Raina, Independence Day carries a different weight after Main Vaapas Aaunga. The 26-year-old actor, who plays the younger version of Naseeruddin Shah in Imtiaz Ali's Partition-era romantic drama, says working on the film made him engage more deeply with what August 15 meant to those who lived through that period. "I feel this immense sense of belonging to the country and an immense sense of pride. After Main Vaapas Aaunga, I've developed a new perspective on what Independence Day means, how much it matters to the people, and how significant it was in our country's history," Raina tells us. "As a kid, I did not get into it that much. But now, I really got in-depth into what that day was like for so many people. And what it stands for now." A visit to the Partition Museum in Amritsar with co-star Sharvari became one of the most important parts of his preparation. The two spent "four hours there, listening to first-person accounts of those who had lived through Partition". "There were 15-20 minute videos of actual people who went through that partition journey. And what that migration was like for them. That experience was really important," he recalls. The film also got him thinking about how differently a moment of such magnitude might unfold today, with social media giving people an instant platform to react and mobilise. "There would be one side where Gen Z would be making those Reels, but also we are such a strong collective voice now. And not just Gen Z, but all generations," he says, adding, "Because of social media, we have a strong, collective voice that cannot be ignored. That is something that we've proven." The research for the film also introduced Raina to details about Partition that he says he had never known before, including the circumstances in which the Radcliffe Line was drawn: "The Radcliffe Line [drawn by Sir Cyril Radcliffe] that we know of: I didn't know that Sir Radcliffe hadn't ever been in India before. He came here for a few weeks, and he was in his hotel room. And he had so much pressure from the higher-ups to make the line between India and Pakistan that he didn't really get to go talk to the people, understand what it means, what those areas mean, what those people are like in those places." He adds, "And for them, it was kind of just like a line that they drew. Which sounds so terrible." Raina was also struck by Lahore's cultural significance before Partition. "Lahore was such a big part of Indian culture. It was the heart of India," he says, adding that it was a hub of "culture, art, music and movies". "What Mumbai is now, the stars of that time used to stay in Lahore and everything used to come from there. And I'm thinking just that line could have changed the lives of maybe 1000s of people." Partition was not entirely absent from conversations at home either. Raina's family is from Kashmir, and while his grandparents did not experience migration at the time, he remembers hearing his grandfather speak about the political climate. "My nana used to talk about how things were, what Mahatma Gandhiji was doing, what Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehruji was doing, and what the political climate was. He is very politically aware." Asked if he has strong political views too, Raina says, "Yes, I'd say not as extreme as him." Freedom has acquired a more personal meaning for him as well. Raina recalls that finishing college and landing The Archies (2023) happened around the same time. "Now, I correlate that azadi with movies. Maybe movies gave me that freedom," he says....