Lamhe:: Story eclipsed the fate of one of the best films of Yash Chopra
Lamhe is a beautiful film in looks. It has got Sri Devi at her best in hindi films. Anil Kapur, too brings a good performance and Lamhe surely added to his reputation of being a good actor. Music is wonderful. Direction is fantastic. Screen play deals with various human emotions and comedy, tragedy, separation, union, tears, laughing etc so many elements are the part of the story. Why then it does not leave audience in good taste? Why it puts them in a mental struggling phase? Many films have been made where an aged man loves a younger girl or vice versa.
Hindi cinema has been having films made on bold theme so boldness of the subject is not an issue here. Way back in late 50s only Hindi cinema had given us Sharda, starring Raj Kapoor and Meena Kumari.
Lamhe’s story, written by Honey Irani leaves audience in bad taste in the end. It brings them under psychological conflict and that’s not what audience demands from a film belonging to entertaining sector of cinema. It goes downside.
Cinematically it is a beautiful visual depiction of a story and Yash Chopra makes it as his one of the best directorial efforts. Audience enjoy the presentation, acting, scenes, music, comedy, emotions but story itself puts psychological stress on the mind of audience.
Age difference is not a great deal while love is concerned. Even love to a man/woman who resembles with the lost lover, is also feasible and acceptable by audience (Kaho Na Pyar Hai etc) but [A] loves a person [B] and if [B] dies then it’s not digestible that [A] would see a lover in daughter/son of [B] and eventually would marry her/him. That’s not acceptable by masses and will never be acceptable. In a society like India, and especially in Hindu religion, majority of people can hardly accept story of Lamhe .
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Gotra system in Hindu religion :-
In Hindu religion, its not common that people belonging to same Gotra can marry each other. People have to marry outside of their Gotra. That’s why there has been a big hue and cry whenever a boy and girl, belonging to same village, fall in love. Its understood that people, belonging to same cast, living in a village, belong to same Gotra and therefore marriage between them is unacceptable. Here liberal systems like bride and groom should not share only blood of biological father/ mother and all other people can marry each other, does not work and people are not allowed to marry even in same Gotra. Gotras are based on the name of Rishis (sages) and they are understood as our forefathers. One rishi (sage) started a particular Gotra. Like people belonging to Vasishtha Gotra cant marry a Vasishtha and a person belonging to Kashyap Gotra cant marry a girl belonging to Kashyap Gotra. People belonging to any cast or classification like Brahmin (Priest class), kshatriya(Warrior), vaishya (Business class) and Shudra (service providers), all may have similar Gotras. Caste system is another factor. But Gotra is equally important in any caste of Hindu society. Scientifically also one has to go far to marry.
So in such scenario where such factors play important role in marriages, Lamhe’s story comes under stake.
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Lamhedoes not care about the Gotra concept . Otherwise she could have saved AK, falling in love with her neighbour SD, belonging to same caste and clan. Warrior class is sensitive in these matters and in Rajsthan state these things matter a lot. For cinematic liberty it can be understood that inspite of living in same state, AK and senior SD belong to different Gotras of Rajputs.
Though many film directors and writers don’t walk on controversial matters. For example, BR Chopra does not show Dilip Kumar and Vaijayanti Bala hailing from same village in Naya Daur. Raj Shri’s Nadiya Ke par shows that village girl who loves Sachin, actually hails from another village and has come there to live with her relatives.
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Coming back to Lamhe: Summary:
Young Anil Kapur(AK), aged 17-19, comes back to his ancestral palace and meets his 26-28 years old neighbour, Sri Devi (SD) .
AK , fascinated by SD’s charm, beauty and pleasant behaviour starts loving her but does not reveal his desires.
SD’s father loses all his property to his cousins and falls sick. He takes promise from AK that he would take care of SD and he dies.
When AK is ready to propose to SD he comes to know that SD loves another man, Deepak Malhotra(DM). Heart broken AK, arranges marriage of SD and DM and SD remains unknown to the fact that AK actually loves her. AK’s nanny Waheeda Rehman(WR) knows the affection and desires of AK towards SD but she also can’t do anything. SD goes away with DM and AK also goes back to London. After a year, he gets a telephone from WR that SD and DM have got an accident and both are severely injured. AK comes back and goes to hospital and finds that DM has been died and pregnant SD is in critical conditions. Like typical filmi drama, doctors declare that they can save either child or mother. AK, under his desires, obviously says that doctor should save the SD but SD says with strength that Doctors should save her child. SD gives birth to a girl child and handles her over to WR and dies.
AK and WR bring new born girl to their palace and AK thinks that girl is the cause of death of SD (Anupama angle) and he decides to leave India to live in UK.
Girl is raised by WR. She is growing up by seeing photos of AK and hearing stories about AK from WR and she starts loving AK. When she is a girl of 17-18 then AK comes back and finds that the girl is the replica of senior SD, her dead love interest. WR and Daughter SD, go to U.K with AK and Anupam Kher and WR both the people help daughter SD to lure AK. One day she sees a painting made by AK and she thinks it’s she who is in the painting and starts enjoying her fantasies but AK makes her realize that it’s her dead mother’s painting.
Junior SD punches him with powerful dialogue,” you might have loved my mother but my mother had loved only one man in her life and that was my Dad”. Fair enough.
Story shows that in the end daughter SD wins the love of AK and after some initial hitches he also accepts her as his lower.
Honey Irani brings very unusual story and Yash Chopra presents this story with all his skills in a beautiful manner but this is a film which is crucified for ill elements present in the story.
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Weaknesses in the unusual story :
Now if we take a break and stop ourselves at the scene in hospital where a pregnant SD is admitted and DM has been killed in the accident.
Option 1) Ak reaches the hospital and finds DM is died and SD is in operation theatre. Doctors save both her and new born child. AK and WR bring SD and her daughter to their home. SD is now a widow. Considering feelings of AK towards SD, what he would do as a normal human being? He would take care of SD and would treat her daughter with love and would present him as her Uncle though secretly he would wish to become a step father to her. He would love the girl like a father and as girl is the gateway to bring her mother in the life of AK, he would treat girl with utmost love and respect. This is psychologically easy path and it’s quite possible that after some years, considering the love of AK towards her and future of her daughter, mother SD may accept AK as man in her life and may prepare herself to marry again.
Option 2) Like option 1 SD is saved with her daughter and both are brought to the home of AK. After realizing her widowhood and new responsibilities to raise her daughter and realizing love of AK towards her, she is still unable to forget DM and decides that she would not marry again and would live for her daughter only. Though AK does not get SD as his wife but he has an opportunity to be the only living man in her life and he spends his life in taking care of mother and daughter and daughter also treats her like a father figure ( ala Khuda Gawah, Danny and daughter SD) and when daughter SD is grown up, she is married to the man she likes or AK and mother SD selects a boy for her.
Option 3) Senior SD does not die in the hospital, right after giving birth to her daughter but she is saved along with her daughter as described in options 1 and 2 and start living with AK and WR. As senior SD is unable to forget her past, so AK has to accept his present fate but he continues loving SD in his heart and takes good care of mother and daughter SD and loves her daughter like a father would love his own daughter. After some years (say 4-5), senior SD is also died and daughter SD is left with AK. Now equation between AK and younger SD can’t be changed and their relationship is of a child and guardian or daughter and a father like man rather a father. AK can’t change his feelings towards junior SD in any manner and it’s far more difficult for a child to change her views about a man, whom she had adored like a father.
But it seems just to become distinguished Honey Irani does not opt any conventional approach and prefers the present form of story.
Her story remains controversial and to some extent unfeasible and raises many questions. WR knows everything and she is very well apprised of the love of AK towards senior SD and she is the directly responsible person who has to raise the junior SD. She is a matured woman and when she is raising a child then it’s impossible that she would not develop motherly feelings for the girl. How on earth she may allow the girl to develop infatuation on an aging AK? She wishes to destroy the life of the girl? A girl of 3 years, needs a father and not a lover as she claims in London to female friend of AK that she knows AK since she was 3 years old girl. She knows him since the time she was a 3 years old girl but at that age she knows him as a guardian and not as a lover.
It’s possible that girl SD did not go to school and teachers came to home to teach her and she did not see parents of other kids in school but still nature suggests that a child demands parents and not lovers. She has to long for her father and not for a lover. Lacking of father may convert in to the search of a lover once she is grown up and understand realities but not before that and even then she can’t love Kunvar Virendra Singh as her lover. And for god sake if she has started loving Kunvar Saab then a person, who did not marry for around 18-19 years because his love interest had died, can never start loving her daughter as his lover.
Moreover in the childhood, WR and AK can’t know that the girl will be a look alike of her own mother. Does AK love the face of SD? That means when she was alive and he was unable to get her love so if that time somehow he had come across a look alike of S D , another SD, he would have started loving her also? Even this angle can be feasible because both SD’s have no relationship with each other. But here we are dealing with a mother and her daughter. One has been loving a mother and hopes to marry her but somehow can’t marry then how can he marry her daughter and that too after 18-20 years. It’s impossible. If it’s possible then it’s an incestuous love. Love between father and daughter. People are killed for such relationships in society and if not killed then they are condemned.
Honey Irani’s story just wanders on the unfeasible path but shies away to explore the psychological threads associated with the story. Her story does not justify, how a girl who needs a father will search a lover in the father figure?
It’s not that there are no examples in real life where people have married women half of their age. Mohammad Ali Jinnah at the age of 42 married Ratti (20-21 then), and Jinnah was a friend of Ratti’s father but certainly not a lover of Ratti’s mother.
Dilip Kumar (Yusuf Khan) at the age of 44 married Saira Bano (22 years old then). Here also it can’t be said that whole his life Dilip Kumar loved the mother Nassem Bano and ultimately married her daughter.
Cricketer turned politician Imran Khan at the age of 42-44 married Jemima (21-22 then) but even he was not a lover of her mother.
In Hindu celebrities, I recall only Vinod Khanna who married again at the age of 44 with Kavita (20-22 then) but even he was not knowing her before let alone her mother.
Nowhere have we found any example, where a man loved a woman but could not marry her and later loved her daughter and married her.
This is the angle where Lamhe’s story looks faltered. Lamhe establishes Yash Chopra’s directorial skills, as people have been watching this film for years, and film is based on a controversial and unfeasible story, but this story eclipsed the success of his hard work. With little care about the real impact of the story, he could have received the right kind of success with this film. If a film can’t justify the story then its not going to be a success. Guide justified the adultery of its female protagonist Rosy Aka Nalini and got a great success.
In India, tales about Rakhi sent by Rani Karnavati to Mogul Emperor Humayun, get emotional applauses from the people, so stories like Lamhe have to be rejected by the masses.
Lamhe is not all about Love. If it’s a love story then its story is all about Incestuous love!!!!
Writer forgot that audience often see characters with his/her own viewpoint and if they find they can do what characters are doing then they accept the story and doings of the characters, especially leading characters else they don’t accept the characters and their doings. Audience have to think that can they do similar things in real life which they see in film Lamhe through Anil Kapur and Sri Devi’s characters?
Yash Chopra’s direction is strong and praiseworthy. If he had selected right kind of twists in the story of his film then film could have gained a mass acceptance. Yash Chopra’s cinema is always based on human emotions, feelings and rituals then how could he play with human feelings and rituals of society this time?
Lamhe remains a very well directed film which got an ill fate because of its faulty story.
Tags: Anil Kapur, Anupam Kher, Dilip Kumar, Honey Irani, imran khan, Lamhe, Meena Kumari, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Naseem Banu, Raj Kapoor, Saira Banu, Sharda, Sri Devi, vinod khanna, Yash Chopra
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Well RK(plz read this) regarding Lamhe, I appreciate ur effort of suggesting some other options as to how the story should have been but let me tell u that Honey Irani was not wrong instead the fundamental thinking of the viewers of this nation is completely wrong and filthy. There is a dialog in the movie where Anupam Kher categorically states that “Pallavi n Pooja” are totally different people n the viewers should also have understood this.Anyhow Lamhe remains the only masterpiece created by Yash Chopra(which has been followed by crass cinema such as DTPH, Neel n Nikki)Can never forget the scene in Lamhe where Anil Kapoor throws the Ashes of the dead Sridevi in the desert with the song “Yeh Lamhe, Yeh pal Hum” playing in the background.
For me, this film is a masterpiece which even Mr Chopra has yet to match!
I was blown by it when i saw it in the early ’90s and again when i viewed it late last year.
Sridevi is my all time favorite, but she was really something else in this!!
A treat for all her fans.
It was very ahead of its times, but I don’t think it would do well if released today either.
Just look at ‘Nishabd’ which was a very well explored yet still didn’t find audience approval!
complete the third option.. so SD would continue harbouring feeling for AK and AK…i mean how would u end it? And the first two options are sterotype. What HI thought and wrote was kinda out of league then (1991).
Such movies are for classes and not masses. So what if the movie failed to create or build a national appeal, it did kindle the hearts it was meant to. Its afterall India we are talking about here. There is a whole bunch of movies which would appeal to the unknowingly saffronised lot out there. Lets just let such pieces of fine work..be…and relish them time and again. Its not evryone’s cup of coffee.
Steve,
I would suggest you watch lamhe again in next 7-8 days and let us know your thoughts. I loved it when it was released by found it technically far inferior when I recently saw it again. Also did not find it that gripping as well
The first time I watched Lamhe, i found it very boring. But when I saw “Indian Summer”, the reedited and dubbed version of “Lamhe”, I liked it very much. The dialogues sounded better and more effective than the Hindi version. The parody song was also cut from it. The only thing I didn’t like in “Indian Summer” was the background score. The background score was like noise to me. I suggest that all those who liked “Lamhe” should also watch the dubbed version “Indian Summer”.
Nidheesh: Friend, I have not written Options 1-3 to suggest that Honey Irani should have given these turns in her story. Through Options, I wished to say that in any case, relationship between younger Sri Devi and Anil Kapur remains relationship between daughter and father. They cant be lovers.
If Puja, (Younger Sri Devi) is not biological daughter of Pallavi (mother Sri Devi) then it really does not matter if she is 30 years younger than Anil Kapur. Then story is digestible. Human emotions cant be played in such a way.
Its best to keep you in the role of Anil Kapur, will you marry, daughter of your lover, with whom you could not marry earlier? If yes then surely film’s story will work for you and if not then its a violent love story.
Certainly Puja and Pallavi, are two different people but they are mother and daughter. If they were sisters, then this story could have grown up in natural way.
If you watch from Puja’s POV, then perhaps you can agree with the film’s story. she is imature and does not know much about life.
But from Anil Kapur’s POV, story does not work. A normal mature man should go mad.
If Anil Kapur has given shelter to a new born girl child in his house and raise her and they both develop a lovers kind of relation then what would you say about this? Such turns may go toward Humbert’s pyschology in Lolita.
Lolita as a novel has been widely read and praised but never as a film.
Dont show Anil Kapur loving, Pallavi and still there are rooms for love story between Puja and Kunvar saab. and we shd mind that its not like normal love, which happens when two strangers meet. Puja has been developing love since her childhood and this point makes the story weak. This suggest ambigous role of her care taker Waheeda Rehman, she was feeding her not food but loveria towards Kunwar saab.
Child psychology is something or not?
Steve: film is beautifully made. Yash Chopra believed in the story and gave his heart to the film. But, ” The burden of story is too heavy for the film to carry”.
any unusual story can be said as ahead of its time. Now we are in 2007, 16 years ahead of 1991, is world still struggling to accept such norms in the society?
Not that incest does not happen in world. it happens but do societies approve it?
Love stories are always based on feelings and if feelings are important then Puja and Kunvar saab can have daughter father relation only. Love is there but its not love of lovers. Lover’s love demands physical aspects also and physical aspect is most important factor in the love.
The person who has been loving a woman for 18-19 long years can be normal while making physical contacts with her daughter?
Which psychologist can give him cleansing effect so that he replaces mother with daughter. Any other woman will do but not daughter of his dead lover.
Shwets: sorry did not get your point abt option 3.
Surely all three options are stereo type. but as I mentioned to Nidheesh, effort was not to suggest options or alternatives but understanding the situation in the story where Sri Devi is lyingh in hospital.
Did she handle over her girl child, to Waheeda Rehman and Anil Kapur with the hope that later her daughter and Anil Kapur will marry?
A dying person will handle over her daughter to be raised by people, who would treat her child as their own child.
This is a point!
How Honey Irani can ignore the human psychology?
Its not story of ahead time. but a story which has gone awry because of ignorance towards psychology.
And Yash Chopra never made any film only for classes. He has been making films for masses! Right from the time of Dhool ka phool and Dharmaputra to Veer Zara, his films have been for masses and perhaps he would love to continue in this fashion only.
Jutisn John: Thanks for info abt english version of Lamhe.
This is strength of Yash Chopra as a director that people cant accept this film and still watch it. He as a director is very much successful, but as a selector of story, he missed something somewhere.
Now his Daag (1973) is a situations based love story. There were situational twists in the story and relationships were developed under those circumstances. There, psychological conflict were within the parameters of humanbeing. One cant curse Rajesh Khanna why he married second time. He is under the impression that his wife has been died.
But Lamhe wish to dribble to reach the goal but there are hiccups. Anil Kapur is not present but Waheeda Rehman is very well present all the time with Puja, She knows her feelings. Is she preparing an innocent girl to make wife of an aging man? Did she ever try to check her progress?
and if Director and authoress wished to make bold statements then why to stop the film at the point where its stopped. Because it can never be and they lived happily ever after. This is not that simple love story.
Why not authoress write suffix. How lovers dealt with their married life.
when taking bold steps why to shy away from after effects.
Either make it conventional type love story and if make it unconventional then make it psychologically well treated film.
The controversy angle is not very clear.
I mean did AK and SD do something and the junior SD is the result of that? Then you can call AK’s love to junior SD incestuous. Otherwise this is a plain love story of a man falling in love with another woman in another time who resembles the first lover and there is no social taboo in this. Why films like this fail. They simply fail because the chemistry between an older man and younger woman or vice versa is not usualy brought out well. While the older man has got all the reasons to be in love with a youg woman (not withstanding the similarity of faces ), the reverse angle needs a lot of substantiation. Why would a younger woman like a older man? either it has to be money(Plain logic), or charisma or good deeds etc., etc.,..
Jaiganesh Bhaiya:
the other lady, who resembles with your dead lover is her daughter in reality and dead lover has handled over her few hours old daughter to be raised by Anil Kapur and Waheeda Rehman.
Incest is not only through physical terms, its in feelings also. How Director and authoress are sure that Young Anil Kapur never made mentally, physical contacts with senior SD or he never got sexual ideas about her. He was just around 20 and his love cant be without dreaming her physically. and after 18 years actual physical relationship with her daughter. you dont find it incest?:-w
Moreover its never mutual love. Junior SD loves AK and Waheeda Rehman, the mother figure of Anil Kapur and Anupam Kher, the friend of Anil Kapur, help Junior SD so that she can win heart and love of Anil Kapur. anytime these two characters, Anupam Kher and WR object to the budding love of Puja? which will definetly happen in any normal society!
Where is the pyschological conflict in the story which is the must factor in such stories? Logic is lost.
story has to be fit.
Suppose, Senior SD and DM dont die and they are parents of Junior SD and Anil Kapur comes back to India after 18 years. Anil Kapur will accept marrying daughter of senior SD, the person, he has been loving since past 18 years and he did not marry for that sake. SD and DM and WR will allow this now?
No its never a plain love story where a guy falls in love. in story also he does not fall in love with Puja. He is convinced by other characters to accept her as his lover.
Hi RK, great review man….but hey, are you the same person who reviewed Utsav and Adharshila? :-? Both these films spoke out-of-the-box, and so does Lamhe…
Well to me Lamhe hardly has any cinematic merit; the only thing that stands out is the story!!! Why? Because it talks about PEOPLE who act the way they want to; not some cardboard characters who react the way WE, the audience want them to! And that’s something that lends itself to imagination…when you sit as audience and are left wondering what this guy’s gonna do next. Rather than behaving EXACTLY as you and I think they should, the characters in Lamhe take their own ways: they are almost flesh and blood, with their own eccentricities and shortcomings…human touch, anyone? Good cinema/good story does not essentially have the protagonists behave PROPER; they should simply appear HUMAN. All else is Bollywood formula
Amby, Hi
and I find story the weakest element in the film. that suggests how same thing appeal differently to different people.
Human touch, characters are flesh and blood, thats why story looks weak. There are several ways where characters may behave differently than the expectations of the audience.
Not even in first view (first show second day of its realse) I had this “wandering effect” that whats going to happen, as it was always clear from the development of the story where its heading. That curiosity factor was associated with only one film of Yash Chopra, Darr, in first half.
Lamhe film does not provide enough ground for its unusual story. Its only touched but not explored in deep.
Chookar nikal gayee satah se!:) [Touched surface only and shied away to explore the subject]
Cinematic merit: Its often difficult to see such factors in a film after 16 years of making. some films surpass the time in every or most of the matter but they are always in minority else even greatest films lose some of their effects which were present when they were released.
Moreover we can do PhD, DSc, DLit but importance of our primary school teacher and other school and college teachers dont vanish. We come ahead through their efforts done on us or before us to make us understand. progress is relative and interdependent on past and future. Lamhe also has that connection, in all its failure and success!!
Jwalant, after all that time i saw it again, and i went through the highs and the lows of the characters, as if viewing for the first time.
Actually, i love the film for what it is, rather than what i feel it could’ve been.
A huge risk was taken by Mr Chopra, no two ways about that.
In regards to the film being technically inferior….are you reffering to camerawork, editing, BGM and the overall look???
Yes. I am referring to points you mentioned. leave the songs aside and rest of film seemed technically inept.
Technically inept??
But do you not think alot of films around that time frame were??
I mean, these days we’ve expanded and brushed up alot on the technical side, but the late 80’s and early 90’s we we’re not that far advanced.
Besides, when we have such a wonderful film, you can easily overlook these things.
I guess im quite biased when it comes to ‘Lamhe’…. absolutely love it!
Jwalant…technically inept??
But back then (late 80’s-early 90’s)films didn’t possess the technical finesse they do now.
I mean, if we look back, then it’s only more recently or from mid 90’s onwards that technique had improved drastically.
I guess im biased when it comes to ‘Lamhe’ as even now, the magic has not worn off for me…:)
The film is still, in my opinion, superior to alot of the love stories which have surfaced over the recent years…:d/
Jwalant: back in 1990, Yash Raj films was not The YRF. Technical aspects have to seen with the contemporary available means and Yash Chopra has never relied on that factor. His films are not for technical excellency. He never tried to make Shollay, or films Mukul Anand made later or Pankaj Parashar tried with his camera.
Yash Chopra has his own class of making films.
If technique is not best then its not bad either. He kept pace with time but made films in which he beleived contentwise.
I have watched this movie in 2007 and instantly it became one of my favourites.
Those who say that AK loving SD( junior) is wrong are just being judged by the crass stupidity this society of ours is where loving someone is looked down upon.
Hats off to Yash Chopra. His best ever. What a performance and what a story. Love you.
Saket:
Loving someone is not looked as bad. Loving as a lover to your daughter alike is looked as bad. and not in our society but anywhere in the world.
It may be different that at some places only biological fathers matter but in our society, father like man, matters.
You are right Lamhe is a nice film made by Yash Chopra. he gave his soul in his direction but alas he did not care to see the story. Story is faulty and will remain for many. Performances are good. rather everything is good except story. But thats my idea.
RK,
The feeling of “Love” is beyond all logic and reasons. You only know you are in love, after you fall in love. And if your heart tells, you are falling in love with a person who happens to be the daughter of someone you loved before…so what ? AK tries to undo his feelings , starts to find reasons to run away and finally he lets his heart take over his mind. I guess it takes a different person to understand the winning of your heart over your mind. Lamhe was a very beautiful story of following you heart no matter what…
@Rajesh Shetty (22)
As I mentioned in the title of the post “One of the best film of Yash Chopra” from Direction POV-
But I stick to objections regarding the story of the film. Contrary to your views I find film’s story manipulates the heart’s emotions and via Anupam Kher’s character these emotions are manipulated. His Prem, forces Anil Kapur’s Viren to accept Puja as his lover. If it was matter of heart then Viren loves Pallavi- the mother of Puja, from bottom of his heart. Many times Mr Yasah Chopra’s films might have advocated the hypothesis that First love keeps immense significance in the life of a person. First love is first realisation before a person when he is ready to surrender before other person. First love’s attraction is always so deep with everyone that later all the loves s/he does is mere repetition of that virgin feeling. Viren does not follow his heart, as you say, he surrenders before repetitive convincings of Prem. He does not listen to his heart, he listens to advices of his friend and he listens to his mind which has got convincing ideas that Puja is not Pallavi and Pallavi never loved him. Since when in love this condition has been entered that its necessary for you to be devoted towards your love that your love interest should also love you?
For sometime Puja’s love towards Viren can be accepted and understood as she has been shown deeply infatuated and impressed by Viren’s name, existence (though without meeting him in person for some 16-17 years). Her Viren is in her imagination but Viren is not an immature person like Puja. He is a mature man and has seen more than 40 years of his age. Story has no convincing plot in last one hour of the film, why Viren should go for Puja and should forget his love towards Pallavi.
Was it necessary for Writer to show Young Sri Devi as daughter of old Sri Devi?
Waheeda Rehman who is mother figure to Viren , raises Puja as her daughter and this girl child is raised in the home of Viren who has been loving her mother. This close proximity since childhood raises objections. It strikes on morality. If you accept incest relationship is fine and ultimately man and woman are two separate entities then all is fine. Afterall animals follow this anarchy. Relationship is not by blood but its more related with mentality. Why people become ready to do murder in anger when someone abuses them with colourful abuses related with their mother and sisters or adpoted sisters and mother like women?
Most simple thing is to enter in to shoes of Viren. Will you marry daughter of your first ever lover with whom you could not marry for any reason.;)