Why did you choose the characters of a policeman and criminal to tell your own version of Vikram and Betaal?” children’s book author Deepa Agarwal asks writer-directors Pushkar-Gayathri, whose movie Vikram Vedha hit the screens on Friday. Agarwal, who has 50 titles to her name, has penned her own retellings of the Baital Pachisi or Vikram Betaal—including, Listen, O King!: Five-and-Twenty Tales of Vikram and the Vetal, which according to her is the adult version of the subversive texts that make one question the good and bad.

The director couple, who has remade their own 2017 Tamil film, starring Hrithik Roshan as Vedha, the criminal, and Saif Ali Khan, as Vikram the cop, seem as obsessed as Agarwal with the collection of stories. Originally known as Baital Pachisi, the earliest version could have been compiled as early as the 11th century in a Sanskrit work by writer Somadeva. Many centuries later, it refuses to leave the imagination of the Indian mythology lover.