Rekha and Jaya Bachchan. Rekha designed her own costumes and jewellery. This was her final collaboration with Amitabh Bachchan. Silsila was shot by Raju Kaygee. Filming was done from November 1980 to May 1981, starting in Kashmir and later Amsterdam, Bombay (now Mumbai), and Delhi. Wanting no exposure from the media, Chopra did the filming privately with the entire cast and crew. He described the production as "real life coming into reel life" but said that there are no incidents on the sets and all the lead actors were co-operative. The Delhi schedule sometimes took place at 5.30 PM when the weather was cold; Rekha recounted how she hated it and that she did so only for Chopra. The film, edited by Keshav Naidu, runs for 166 minutes. Hariprasad Chaurasia and Shivkumar Sharma provided the background score. Music The soundtrack to the film, released by Saregama on 18 May 1981, was composed by Shiv–Hari. The lyrics were by Javed Akhtar, Hasan Kamal, Meera Dev Burman, Nida Fazli, Rajendra Krishan, and Harivansh Rai Bachchan. "Yeh Kahan Aa Gaye Hum" was one of the songs sung by Lata Mangeshkar in her concert "Lata Live". Akhtar, who previously collaborated with Salim Khan in screenwriting, turned to lyrical composition and "Dekha Ek Khwab" was his first written song. Akhtar was chosen after Chopra hearing his poetry and being astonished by it. "Rang Barse Bhige Chunar Wali" became one of the most-played songs in the Holi celebration. Release and reception Silsila was released on 14 August 1981 and failed at the box office, which Chopra believed due to the audience's attentions mostly given to the controversy, resulted by the casting, rather than the plot. Around a week later, a screening was held at the Mumbai Metro and collected , with being donated to the Nargis Dutt Foundation. Sunil Sethi of India Today criticized the cliché storyline and called the cast uninteresting. In his review, Sethi concluded, "But Silsila itself is pure polyester yarn. It's a lot less real than the so-called dirty, distorted and damaging stories that appear in the gossip press which the stars claim are so distressing. At least they read better, look better and may be include half-truths here and there. Silsila looks good, too, but is a distortion of half-lies, which is worse." Dwyer wrote that Amitabh Bachchan's then-popular screen persona as an "angry young man", which he got from Deewaar