Meer Abdulla came to the United States as an international student and aspired to be a filmmaker. He met Gummuluri Sastry, an engineer already living in the US and they started working together in theatre with Sastry directing the plays and Abdulla playing the lead role. As the leader of a Telugu association, Sastry had the opportunity to invite the crew of the Telugu films Sankarabharanam (1980) and Ananda Bhairavi (1983) to tour US. This ended up giving Sastry and Abdulla the chance to meet Jandhyala and S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, leading to the idea of the film being conceived and developed.
