Yash Chopra refused to change ending of Lamhe despite pressure from industry: ‘Nahi chali film toh nahi chali’

Yash Chopra’s Lamhe bombed at the box office upon its release in 1991. The film starring Anil Kapoor and Sridevi in the lead roles was rejected by the audience for its bold take on love at the time. The film’s writer Honey Irani revealed in one of her interviews how Yash Chopra held his ground and didn’t change the film’s climax despite many suggestions from his peers. She also shared how the filmmaker had given her a one-line brief and asked her to write the script.

Irani, while speaking to Komal Nahata, shared that Chopra always wanted to do “something fresh and different”. “For Lamhe, he told me, ‘I want to make a film, I have been trying for a long time, you see what you can do with the idea.’ It was just a one-line idea that there is a boy who loves a girl, but she loves someone else and gets married, but the boy still loves her. Now, what would you do with this one-line idea, but you have to do it? That’s how I wrote Lamhe,” recalled Irani.

The screenwriter finished writing the script in 15 days and narrated it to Chopra but his reaction left her in tears. Irani revealed, “After listening to the narration, he (Chopra) left without giving any expression or saying anything. I started crying and Pam was also crying. I told her, ‘I am crying because I think the party is over, why are you crying?’ She told me she liked the script very much. I thought I wrote it in 15 days, I should have given it more time. Yash ji came after half an hour and hugged me. That was the best day of my life.”

Despite the best efforts from the film’s team, Lamhe couldn’t bring people to the cinema halls. “Lamhe was a big setback for me. Everyone had worked hard and had liked the film, how did it go wrong? Then everybody started saying, ‘We told you to change the climax.’ In fact, we were told not to keep this end and Yash ji and I had discussed and thought of three alternate ends.”

But, ultimately, Yash Chopra realised that they could not change the film’s script. Irani shared, “Yashji said, ‘Honey, what are we doing? Why are we changing our initial thought?’ So, we didn’t use the alternate versions and Yash ji said, ‘I will use this end only, nahi chalegi toh nahi chalegi (It’s fine if the film will not work).’”

When Lamhe didn’t work, Yash Chopra “felt very bad, he was very fond of the film.” However, over the years film gained the cult status and made Irani ask people who came and praised it, “What happened to you when the film was released?”