Yograj Bhat was born in Mandarthi in Udupi district. He did his schooling in Dharwad. Then he went to Mysore for further studies. He was a student of Kannada Literature. During his college days he watched a lot of foreign classics like Coppolla’s Godfather, Kurasawa’s Ran. He is a great fan of Kurosawa and fed upon a staple diet of Fellini and Godard films. These films inspired him a lot. He came to Bangalore at the age of 22. Initially he wanted to be a film cameraman. His stint as an assistant director with Girish Kasaravalli, V. Ravichandran, Sunil Kumar Desai and B Suresh helped him to learn more about the aspect of film direction. Yograj worked under these directors who had diverse styles of working. He says \"It was not about who the guru was. It was about being employed, It was the thrill of watching filmmaking at close quarters. I even enjoyed being admonished by these directors. The thrill of standing next to a camera and listening to its sound is inexplicable.\" He directed a TV serial, Chakra before making his first feature film. After eight years he was ready to make his first film. It was difficult for him to get a break as an independent director. However he found a producer for his first kannada movie titled Mani. The highlight of my the film MANI was Umashree and Rangayana Raghu. Even today people remember those two characters and both of the artists got the Karnataka State's Best Supporting Actor award for their respective roles in the movie. Then he made his second movie Ranga s.s.l.c. with Sudeep and Ramya and Umashree acting as Sudeep's mother. The movie highlighted the mother-son sentiment. The story of the film was written by his close friend Soori. The music of the film was composed by Sandeep Chowta is one of the major highlights. However the movie was not an success story at the boxoffice and was only an average grosser. For the next two years he did not direct any movie as it was testing times for him. He spent his time doing a lot of corporate films and documentaries. He had also decided to give himself a bit of time before he ventured into another film project. That was when the idea of Mungaaru Male came up. He almost spent one year writing the script. \"Comedy Time\" Ganesh liked the script very much, and he introduced a producer E Krishnappa who eventually produced the film. And rest is history.