Salil Chowdhury had originally composed the tune of this song for the Bengali non-film song "Na Mono Laage Na" sung by Lata Mangeshkar. He used the same tune again for the Tamil film song "Naan Ennum" ("Azhiyatha Kolangal", 1979) sung by S.P. Balasubramaniam.[1][2]
There was much confusion around the lyrics of this song before the final version by Gulzar was chosen. While Salil Chowdhury had asked Yogesh to write the lyrics for this tune, director Hrishikesh Mukherjee had asked Gulzar to do the same. Eventually, Yogesh's "Naa ro ankhiyaan" was not used since Hrishikesh Mukherjee had already planned to shoot the song with Gulzar's lyrics.[MR10]
The tune for this song was originally planned for the unreleased film "Anand Mahal" (1977).[3][MR10]