According to the director Anurag Kashyap, this movie is dedicated to the song "Yeh mehalon, yeh takhton, yeh taajon ki duniya. Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye toh kya hai" and its lyricist Sahir Ludhianvi from the Guru Dutt movie Assoiffé (1957).
The censor board censored two dialogues from the movie - one referring to Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar and a discussion about the origin of India's National Anthem.
The film was shot during festivals a lot because of the shoe string budget, which helped the producers save money for lighting and extras.
In this movie,Mahie Gill's character tells Kay Kay Menon's character about how she was in a pilot for a show on TV but it never took off.This possibly is inspired from Mia Wallace-Vincent Vega sequence of Pulp Fiction in which Mia was the one whose show's pilot wasn't picked up.Anurag Kashyap has publicly acknowledged Quentin Tarantino as his inspiration,hence it's likely that this scene was inspired from pulp fiction.
The film was initially being produced by Jhamu Sughand but after 20 days of shooting due to some personal problems of Jhamu Sughand the shooting got halted. Gulaal was stopped midway along with Johnny Gaddaar (2007) and Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na (2008), the other two films of Jhamu. The former was picked up by Adlabs and the latter by Aamir Khan. Gulaal got stalled for 2 more years and then Zee Motion Pictures came in and backed the movie. This is how Gulaal got finished finally.
Anurag Kashyap: In the party scene that takes place after Dilip Singh's win. He is seen shaking hands with Dilip Singh and Dukki Banna.