Aparna Sen, a noted actress and director of Bengali cinema, made her debut as a director with the English film "36 Chowringhee Lane" (1981). "Mr. and Mrs. Iyer" was her second film in English. She hoped to write a simple romantic story, but it shaped out to be a relationship drama in the backdrop of sectarian violence. Sen came up with the background of the story in the aftermath of &lt;a href="11%20September%202001%20attacks"&gt;9/11&lt;/a&gt; and the 2002 Gujarat riots. In an interview, Sen stated that the omnipresent, circumstantial violence in the film was only to serve as a strain in the script which aimed to show how the relationship evolves between two people who are forced to be together under trying times. She stated that the time frame of the film was set after the attacks on the Parliament of India on 13 December 2001.