He became a fan of Manmohan Desai and Hrishikesh Mukherjee. Watching the Bengali film Meghe Dhaka Tara, directed by Ritwik Ghatak, made him interested in filmmaking and passed with a gold medal.
David Dhawan was born on 16 August 1951 as Rajinder Dhawan in Agartala, Tripura in a Punjabi family. His father, a manager in UCO Bank, got transferred to Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh.He studied in Christ Church College and BNSD Inter College until Class XII, and then joined FTII for acting where he changed his name to David Dhawan, a name given by his Christian neighbours in Agartala.