in philosophy in Hindu College (Delhi University), but left it halfway and went to Mumbai to work in films and join his brother Navin Nischol, who was then playing the lead man in his first Bollywood movie, Sawan Bhadon.

Nischol started his career as a director with the film Jaan Se Pyara starring Navin, Rekha, Reena Roy, Amjad Khan, and Prem Chopra, with music by R. D. Burman.

The special effects of this movie were done by John Dykstra of Apogee Studios, Los Angeles, who had made the epic film Star Wars in partnership with George Lucas.

After this initial setback, Nischol took the rights of the four volumes of the Bengali literary classic Shrikant,[1][2] by Sarat Chandra Chatterjee.

He made the first two volumes into a sponsored TV serial for Doordarshan, called Shrikant, starring Farooque Shaikh, Sujata Mehta, Priyadarshani, and Bharat Bhushan.

Nischol then produced and directed the feature film English Babu Desi Mem, starring Shah Rukh Khan, Sonali Bendre, and Saeed Jaffrey.

He produced, wrote and directed the TV film Jahan Pyar Miley[3] for the programme Director's Cut on Channel 9.