SA Chandrasekhar , veteran filmmaker and the father of actor and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Vijay , had a successful run in the South, but his Bollywood innings wasn’t entirely smooth. After a flop directorial debut in the mid-1980s, he was hesitant to do more films in Hindi, until producer KC Bokadia stepped in.

In a podcast with ANI, Bokadia recalled that Radhikaa Sarathkumar introduced him to Chandrasekhar. Radhikaa had worked with Bokadia in two films by then — T Rama Rao’s Naseeb Apna Apna and Sudarshan Nag’s Asli Naqli, both of which released in 1986. The next year, Radhikaa headlined Chandrasekhar’s hit Tamil courtroom drama Neethikku Thandanai.

The producer then bought the rights to remake that film in Hindi, and got Radhika and her mother to bring Chandrasekhar to his office. “I asked Chandrasekhar to direct it in Hindi as well. But he said, ‘I’m a flop in Hindi.’ He’s an honest man,” said Bokadia.…