Devayani

A middle-class family battles financial hurdles and personal setbacks while pursuing their dream of owning a home in the bustling city. (IMDb.com)

Nizharkudai is a Tamil movie starring Devayani, Vijjith Shivashanmugam, Kanmani Manoharan and Neelima Rani in prominent roles. It is written and directed by Shiva Arumugam.

Shivaramakrishnan (Mukesh), a government employee, unsatisfied with his meager salary, & despite stiff opposition from his wife Padmini (Devayani), who also happened to be his boss at work, shirks work & tries to make an extra buck in the form of a pyramid selling scheme, & draws his friend Mukundan (Asokan) also into it. They both lose their shirts in the scheme, but not giving up, they next start a daycare to regain their losses. That too doesn't go as well as they planned.

Nandakumar (Mohanlal), a clever cop from the Vigilance & Anti-Corruption bureau, takes on the disguise of a commoner to corner a corrupt, but equally shrewd government official - Assistant Town Planning Officer Gopi Krishnan (Sreenivasan), but gets the tables turned on him. Meanwhile, his personal life gets messed up when his estranged wife Meera (Sameera Reddy), approaches the court for custody of their daughter.

Mullamkolli Velayudhan (Mohanlal) is an orphan brought up by the chief of the village Valiya Nambiar (Madhu). Velayudhan is a drunkard & rules the village with his muscle power, but he is good at heart & keeps the evils of the modern world out of his tiny hamlet. Velayudhan is at constant odds with Valiya Nambiar's son-in-law Gopinathan (Siddique). Gopinathan, along with his cronies, Kuruppu (Jagathy Sreekumar) & Keeri Raghavan (Bheeman Raghu) hatches various schemes to get rid of Velayudhan.

Athaniparambil Balachandran (Mohanlal), affectionately known as "Balettan" to everyone, including his kids, is a do-gooder & simpleton who is always ready to help his villagers without regard for his own welfare. His father, a retired postmaster (Nedumudi Venu), dies after confessing to Balettan about his second wife & two daughters. Balettan keeps this a secret & looks after his stepmother & stepsisters without the knowledge of his own family, which leads to flashpoints in his personal life.

Musician & odd-job man Soorya Narayanan (Suresh Gopi) is lured into playing the husband for mentally depressed Jyothika (Devayani), by Jyothika's millionaire father Ramachandra Menon (N.F. Varghese) & Jyothika's doctor Geevarghese (Mukesh). They pull this off my plying Soorya's greedy wife Sridevi (Nandini) with wealth & riches, thus coaxing her to lend out her husband. However, Soorya gets in a bind when a rich Sridevi neglects him & a married Jyothika shows improvement & cares for him.

Thenali (Kamal) is a traumatized Sri Lankan Tamil, who has is beset by a variety of elaborate phobias. A psychiatrist Panchabutam (Delhi Ganesh), convinced that Thenali is impossible, refers him to rival shrink Kailash (Jayaram). The doctor takes an instant dislike to his new patient, while his wife (Devyani) and sister (Jyothika) take more of a liking to him than Kailash would like.

SI Bhagyanathan (Jagadish) & constable Bhaskaran (Sreenivasan), both are after Bhagyanathan's cousin Anju (Devayani), due to which they constantly quibble. Bhaskaran & constable Mathew Joseph (Mala) lose an accused thief Eenashu (Harisree Asokan) on the way to the court, thereby getting suspended. Later they lie about killing a terrorist who actually committed suicide & becomes eligible for a reward of 50 lakhs, but Bhagyanathan pulls some strings to block their prize unless they find Eenashu.

Mahadevan Thampi (Sreenivasan), owner of the Sankaramangalam Hospital, gets cheated by his uncle Madhavan Thampi (Rajan P. Dev) into transferring the ownership of the hospital to Madhavan's London-educated daughter Nandini (Annie), by enticing Mahadevan with the false promise of giving Nandini's hand in marriage to him. However, Madhavan had his own slimy plans of getting Nandini married to Rajagopal (Mukesh), the new doctor in the hospital, but who in reality was a quack out to make some cash.

Unemployed youth Kunjananthan (Dileep) faces ridicule from his family & loses his girlfriend Shanthini (Geetha Vijayan) after he is falsely accused of a theft. Dejected with life, Kunjananthan repeatedly attempts to commit suicide, but each attempt is foiled by fate. Finally, a new job & a new girlfriend, Latha (Devayani), breathes life into his existence & he yearns to live again.

Struggling artist Muthukulam Madhukumar (Dileep), with the help of pals Benny Kurien (Premkumar) & Surendran (Indrans), tries to kidnap his lover Subha (Devayani), when their affair becomes known to Subha's folks & Subha was put on house arrest. However, they screw up & kidnap Subha's friend Maya instead. Meanwhile, another gang of goons mistakenly kidnap Subha, instead of their real target Maya. With the cops, & the goons who want Maya, after them, the trio, along with Maya, goes into hiding.

Kunjikrishnan (Sreenivasan), the eldest son of a famed Ayurvedic doctor Thirrussheri Madhavan Vaidyar (Thilakan) is a good-for-nothing who often messes up things at his father's clinic. He runs away after he prescribes wrong medicine to a patient which results in his near-death. Months later, with the help of a thief Chacko (Jagathi) as his assistant, Kunjikrishnan returns to his village & sets up shop as a divine healer, soon becoming famous & sabotaging his Doctor brother's medical practice.