After completing his MBA and beginning work as a management consultant, Mani Ratnam was keen to enter the film industry and thus accepted the invitation of his friends Ravishankar and Raman (the sons of director B. R. Panthulu and musician S. Balachander respectively) to co-write the script of a Kannada film they were making, titled "Bangarada Gani". Featuring Vishnuvardhan, Lakshmi, Ambareesh and Roja Ramani, the film was never completed and was later shelved. Mani Ratnam then decided to branch out as a director himself and wrote a script entirely in English, during a single month in 1980.