5 min readHyderabadJun 27, 2026 04:31 PM IST When K Bhagyaraj was approached to direct a Hindi film in the mid-1980s, his name was already familiar to Hindi audiences, even if his face wasn’t, since several of his Tamil scripts had already been remade in Hindi. This time, though, producer A Purnachandra Rao, known in the industry as Poorna Chandra, wanted Bhagyaraj himself to direct, not just write. Bhagyaraj, who had built his reputation on family dramas with light comic touches, was hesitant at first, given how completely action films dominated Hindi cinema at the time, and kept asking Rao to wait for the right moment. When Poorna Chandra persisted, Bhagyaraj eventually gave him an outline, which Poorna Chandra liked enough to ask for a full screenplay. That story had already taken shape once before, as Oru Kaithiyin Diary, a 1984 Tamil film directed by Bharathiraja and written by Bhagyaraj, starring Kamal Haasan in a dual role. Poorna Chandra wanted the Hindi version built around Amitabh Bachchan instead, and he was brought to Chennai to …