Audiographer : Kapil Chandra, Narendra Singh Lyrics : Yogesh Gaur Music Director : Salil Chowdhury Production Development The original story, Yahi Sach Hai (1960), written in diary format was by Mannu Bhandari, an important writer of the Nayi Kahani literary movement of Hindi literature in the 1960s. While writing the screenplay, Basu Chatterjee transposed the story from Kanpur and Kolkata to Delhi and Mumbai in the film. Casting Director Basu Chatterjee's original cast was Shashi Kapoor, Sharmila Tagore and Amitabh Bachchan. Then he switched to Bengali actors, Aparna Sen and Samit Bhanja. Even classical dancer Mallika Sarabhai was to be cast as lead, but her final MBA exams clashed and eventually debutante Vidya Sinha got the role after she responded to one of the ads placed by Basu Chatterjee. This was the first Hindi film of Amol Palekar, who at that time was a less known theater actor. In an interview in 2015 with S.M. Irfan on Rajya Sabha TV, Palekar described the circumstances in which he made this switch to mainstream acting. During one of their meetings at the "Film forum" (one of the leading film societies of Bombay at that time) Basu Chatterjee showed Palekar the story "Yahi Sach Hai" by Mannu Bhandari to read. Once Palekar finished reading it, Chatterjee showed him the script that had been written based on this story. He thereafter asked him if he would like to play the leading role in it. Palekar, a trained artist from the JJ School of art and a theater actor had at that time worked in two Marathi films including Shaantata Court Chaalu Aahe, by Satyadev Dubey and Govind Nihalani. Filming The principal photography of the film started with 20-day schedule in Mumbai in 1972, which wrapped up in 16 days. This was followed by a 15-day schedule in Delhi. However, after that the film's producer, Suresh Jindal who was also a first time film producer struggled for the next two years to obtain the remaining funding. A potential distributor even offered finance for the film if it was reshot with a different lead actor. The film was completed eventually in 1974 with same leads. Soundtrack The film's music director was Salil Chowdhury rendered commercially successful tracks and the songs were written by Yogesh. Mukesh sang "Kai Baar Yuheen Dekha hai," for which he won the National Film Award for Best Male Playback Singer. Release On