Initially Kamal Haasan roped in violinist L. Subramaniam to compose music for the film. Kamal Haasan completed shooting the whole film along with the song sequences that were composed by L. Subramaniam. But when Kamal approached him for the final sound for mixing, he had asked for ₹ 1,00,00,000 (almost US$1,40,100), which was not the amount agreed upon earlier. So, Kamal went to composer Ilaiyaraaja to help him solve this situation. Kamal quotes: "He didn't ask me anything about what went wrong, he should have asked, but he didn't, that shows his true character. He asked me point blank, 'what shall we do next?'". Kamal Haasan told Ilaiyaraaja that the songs had already been shot with the music composed by L. Subramaniam and he wanted to remove the songs and re-shoot them with Ilaiyaraaja's. On hearing that, Ilaiyaraaja suggested to Kamal Haasan that he could fix it without Kamal needing to re-shoot any footage or songs. Puzzled, Kamal was initially reluctant. Then Ilaiyaraaja asked Kamal, "You don't trust me to do this?" Kamal immediately agreed.