As Gaekwad, who primarily spoke Kannada and his native Marathi, was only "tangentially familiar" with Tamil, Balachander advised him to learn the language. Gaekwad practised by speaking only Tamil with his friend Raja Bahaddur, a native Tamil speaker; he mastered the language in 20 days. After meeting Balachander again, and impressing him with his Tamil, he was given the part. When it came to giving Gaekwad a screen name, Balachander had three options: Rajinikanth, Chandrakanth and Srikanth. He chose Rajinikanth, the name of A. V. M. Rajan's character from his 1966 film "Major Chandrakanth"; the name means "colour of night", referring to Gaekwad's skin colour, though it was misspelled in the credits as "ரஜனிகாந்த்" (Rajanikanth).