Subhash Ghai had written Vishwanath, one of his box-office blockbusters which released on January 20, 1978, in 15 days flat. The film went on the floors in a month. It was all done, the veteran filmmaker reveals to  The Woods 40 years later, to help out good friend Shatrughan Sinha: “I had already started working on Gautam Govinda, starring Shashi Kapoor and Shatrughan Sinha, after the massive success of my first film Kalicharan (also starring Shatrughan in the title role). However, the film was taking time to get made because of issues with the censor board guidelines on allowing violence.

Around the same time, Khaan Dost, a film for which I had written the story for Dulal Guha and was produced by Shatrughan Sinha, flopped. That’s when Shatrughan called me and asked me to direct a film for Ramayana Chitra (his home production). He was a friend who had earlier obliged me by working in my first directorial venture Kalicharan. His banner was in crisis and hence I agreed to make a film with him despite having decided earlier that I would never make two movies at one time. The problem was that I did not have a subject. To add to that, I was told that we had to start shooting and announce something right away so that the distributors don’t get jittery.

I remember going to Khandala for three to four days and returning with the first draft of the story about a criminal lawyer turning a criminal. I narrated the idea and they liked it.

I finished the script in 15 days after that and in the meantime also got Reena Roy and Prem Nath (who played the iconic villain named DNK) on board. We actually started shooting within a month. We kept improving along the way.

I remember I wrote a very strong character for Shatrughan Sinha... you would know if you have seen the court scene in the film. This was a character on whose intelligence people placed bets on. Within nine months the film was almost complete. But when I saw it I realised there are loopholes. I went back to shooting for eight more days…

To my surprise the film was a bigger hit than Kalicharan. It went on to do tremendous business across all centres. I remember people clapping and whistling to the dialogues.

The most famous of course remains Jali Ko Aag Kehte Hai, Bujhi Ko Raakh Kehte Hai, Jis Raakh Se Barood Bane, Use Vishwanath Kehte Hai. God has been kind. It has been 40 years and people still remember the film. It plays on TV probably thrice a month.”