although "deiva cheyal" was not a commercial success, thevar adapted it in hindi as "haathi mere saathi" (1971), starring rajesh khanna. this version, the script of which was tweaked by salim-javed, emerged a major success, and was adapted in tamil, again with some changes, as the m. g. ramachandran starrer "nalla neram" (1972), which was also a success. however, thevar later opined that "the performance of both mgr and rajesh khanna was only 50%" of sundarrajan's.