Having pledged his love for college girl Madhu, Vijay finds himself entwined in a close friendship with Anu, a married woman separated from her husband.

Vijay grapples with the definition of love, treading the fine line between trust and attraction, amidst tremendous societal pressure.

[2] With the script of the film which he intended to make in Tamil, Ratnam first met Kamal Haasan to play the protagonist, after his friend Kitty arranged a meeting with the actor.

Ratnam revealed that he was open to the idea of selling the script to a popular director so that he could learn about filmmaking during the production process, but his meetings with K. Balachander, Bharathiraja and Mahendran[3] were not successful.

[citation needed] While selecting the cast, Ratnam approached Lakshmi, with whom he had worked during the making of Bangarada Gani to portray the lead character with whom the younger man falls in love.

[3] Ratnam did not know Kannada before directing the film but learned it "on the job", as he extensively researched literature for the script at the USIS and British Council offices in Chennai.

Towards the end of production, the film ran into financial difficulties and it took twenty one months to finish the final three days of the shoot, owing to call-sheet conflicts.

Ratnam told Ilaiyaraaja that he was doing a Kannada film with a very small budget but wanted him to compose the music, while also confessing that he could not afford to pay the latter's market price.

[citation needed] The film experienced moderate success at the box office, performing well in bigger cities but not so well in smaller towns and villages.