Starring | Mahesh, Anjali, Pandi | ||
---|---|---|---|
Music By | Vijay Antony | ||
Lyric By | Na. Muthukumar | ||
Singers | V.V.Prasanna, Shreya Ghoshal, Naresh Iyer, Haricharan, Benny Dayal, Hamsika Iyer | ||
Year | 2010 |
Angaadi Theru is a 2010 Indian Tamil romantic drama film written and directed by Vasanthabalan, starring debutant Mahesh and Anjali in the lead roles. The title refers to the Ranganathan Street in Chennai where the story plays. The film features music jointly composed by Vijay Antony and G. V. Prakash Kumar. An Ayngaran International production, the film was launched on 11 February 2008 and released on 26 March 2010 to critical acclaim. The film was shortlisted for the Indian submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film but lost to Peepli Live. It released in Telugu as Shopping Mall.
The film starts with Jyothi (Mahesh) and Kani (Anjali) playing and making fun of each other in night time asking many people "How is the match between us?" They get into a bus and the song "Kadaigalai Pesum" starts. Not owning a house, the two then find a place to sleep in the street where masonry workers are sleeping. While they are dreaming, a fire engine completely loses its control after colliding with another vehicle and hits the people sleeping in street. The next scene shows the jammed vehicle, blood, crying people and the hospital where Jothi is lying on a stretcher with blood all over his body. When some policemen ask Jothi, "What is your name? Where are you from?", he just murmurs "Kani, Kani, Kani...". The flashback now starts and the scene takes us to a village in Tirunelveli.
Jyothi Lingam (Mahesh) is a bright student and son of a mason who leads a happy life in his village near Tirunelveli. One day tragedy strikes as his father, the only earning member dies in an accident while crossing an unmanned railway gate. The young boy now has to look after his mother and two sisters.
Due to circumstances, he is forced to abandon his studies, though he comes first in his school in the board exam. Through a canvassing agent, he and his friend Marimuthu get jobs as sales-boys in a textile showroom in Ranganathan Street in Chennai.
Jyothi, along with hundreds of others, is employed at the Senthil Murugan Stores run by a big businessman. On each floor at the textile showroom, there are around 50 to 60 sales boys and girls who work in pitiable conditions from early in the morning to late night, without any rest.
He meets Kani (Anjali), a fiery independent girl. The difficult and harrowing times in the store bring them together as they face up to a cruel and lewd store supervisor Karungali (A. Venkatesh), who beats up the boys and molests the girls if they are caught playing around during duty hours. Jyothi says there is no escape from the “jail like” atmosphere in the shop where employees are treated more like slave labour in a concentration camp without any human dignity. Aftet some arguments slowly Jyoti and Kani falls in love with each other.