The film was made on such a shoestring budget that Naseeruddin Shah, the most well known actor was paid only Rs 15,000 ($300) for the movie. Naseer also had to bring his own Nikon camera to the shootings to use as a prop for his character, who was a photographer. Towards the end of the shooting, this camera was stolen, which amongst other painful memories of the making of the film, Naseer still reminisces about.
In the original unedited version, the finale (Mahabharat drama stage scene) consisted of a far greater number of characters walking in and poking fun at current issues, including Mahatma Gandhi, Prithviraj Chauhan and Chandragupta Maurya.
The original uncut and unedited film was for about 6 hours and was shown in this form at the FTII Pune to the students and teachers. By half time, as per then students of the institute, the entire street outside was full of watchers who was rolling with laughter. The biggest laughs were for the satire scene, in which a number of unrelated characters walk into a Mahabharat drama set.
Anupam Kher was cast as a 'Disco killer' in the film, a gangster who was supposed to be an assassin with an eyesight problem - he hits a mango when he aims at a man, but assures people he will hit a man...when he aims at a mango and also eliminated his victims while he danced. All his scenes were shot, but discarded from the final cut at the editing stage.
The names of the two lead characters played by Naseeruddin Shah and Ravi Baswani are references to the names of the production controller, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, and the assistant director, Sudhir Mishra, both of whom went on to become well-known Hindi movie directors.