The story of Chathu, The Elephant Boy was first written and published in Malayalam. The original story was called 'Anakkaran', which means, literally, "elephant man" or mahout. It was written Karoor Nilakanta Pillai and was quite short. Shanta Rameshwar Rao found the story had immense potential for a full length adventure story. In consultation with the author, she added new characters and situations and lengthened the story, although the plot remained the same.