Aa Bata Aama 2: Did You Go Home This Dashain?
On Ghatasthapana she gets up before everyone else.
She washes the clay pot, fills it with soil from the field, and presses in the barley seeds one by one. She waters them every morning for nine days, keeps them out of the sun, and watches the yellow shoots climb. By Tika day the jamara is tall and golden, just the way you liked it as a child.
Then she waits.
The phone rings in the afternoon. It's a video call from Doha, or Sydney, or Kathmandu, which is only a few hours away but somehow just as far. "Aama, I couldn't get leave this year. Next Dashain, for sure. *Aauchhu.* I'll come."
She smiles into the screen, says it's fine, and tells you to eat properly. After the call she puts the jamara behind her own ear and gives herself tika in front of the mirror.
The line that stops you
The banner for Aa Bata Aama 2 carries one line in red:
*"आउँछु" भन्ने एउटा झुटो आशामा आमाले वर्षेनी जमरा छरिरहन्छिन्।*
On the false hope of one word, "I'll come", a mother sows jamara every single year.
The poster goes further. A cracked old house asks, *"यो दशैंमा पनि तिम्रो सन्तान आएन है आमा??"* — "Your children didn't come this Dashain either, did they, Aama?"
If you've ever skipped a Dashain at home, those lines aren't just marketing. They feel like an accusation.
The story
Directed by Chandra Pant and released for Dashain, *Aa Bata Aama 2* is set in a quiet village. Basudev and Devaki are a hardworking couple who want a better future for their two sons. When the younger son grows up, he leaves for the city to chase his ambitions, despite his parents begging him to stay.
Years later he comes back successful, hoping to share it all with his family. Instead he finds an empty house, and has to face the most painful question of all: while he was busy chasing his dreams, did he lose the people who mattered most?
The poster tells it in pictures. An aeroplane in one window. A swing and a Dashain crowd in the other. Two grown sons asleep at a table beside a plate of tika and jamara and a passport. Their mother sits between them, smiling the way mothers smile when they've decided not to cry.
Why it hits so hard
Almost every Nepali household has someone who left. They left for work, for study, for a visa or for a better salary. We tell ourselves it's for the family, and often it really is. Money sent home builds the new roof, pays the school fees and clears the loan.
But a parent's calendar doesn't run on salary. It runs on festivals. Dashain is when the leaving shows. The extra plates nobody uses. The swing nobody plays on. The tika kept on the side "in case they come tomorrow".
*Aa Bata Aama 2* doesn't blame the son for wanting more. It asks him, and us, to count what we're paying for it.
What the film asks of you
You don't need to quit your job abroad or rush to the bus park. The film is asking for something smaller and harder:
- Call before she calls you. Not on Tika day, today.
- Ask about her day, not only "Are you well?" Ask what she cooked and who visited.
- Keep one promise. If you said "next Dashain", put it in your calendar now and book the leave.
- Watch it with family. If you're home this year, take your parents. If you're far away, send them the tickets.
Before the jamara dries
Dashain ends. The jamara turns pale and gets thrown in the river. Most mothers will never say they were hurt. They'll say, "It's fine, next year."
*Aa Bata Aama 2* reminds us that "next year" is the only promise we keep making that we can't take back if we run out of years.
So, did you go home this Dashain? If you did, hold on to that. If you didn't, call her now. And if the film makes you cry in the hall, let it. That's not weakness. It's homesickness finally being honest.
At a glance
- Released: Asoj 30, 2083 (October 16, 2026), for Dashain
- Runtime: 120 minutes
- Certificate: PG
- Story, screenplay and direction: Chandra Pant
- Cast includes: Bipana Thapa, Pradeep Rawat, Paul Shah, Malika Mahat, Saigrace Pokhrel and Aakash Shrestha