Summaries

Synopsis

Faced with several debts, a village accountant Gandhi Arumugam leaves his village near Madurai to head to Chennai with his best friend Muthupandi Selvam alias Pandi to get all the documents necessary for going to London, where they plan to make money to pay off their debts. They approach two middlemen to help them get the passport and British tourist visa necessary for them to go to London. The middlemen claim that the British Deputy High Commission would prefer to give tourist visas to those who are already married, so the duo are forced to add their "wife's" name while applying for the passport, with Gandhi adding his "wife's" name as Karmeghakuzhali, following a suggestion from their real estate broker, Murugesan. However, Gandhi's visa application is rejected, forcing him to remain in Chennai and take up a job as an accountant with a drama troupe Stray Factory, run by Master, while Pandi passes his visa interview and leaves for London with the help of a passport officer, Kumar.

With his hard work and sincerity, Gandhi soon becomes the favourite employee of Master and is made to act in his plays. Eventually, Stray Factory are invited to perform in London, leaving Gandhi in a bind as he now needs to get his "wife's" name removed from his passport. He finds out that the only way to do so is to divorce his "wife", but for that, he needs to find a woman who has the name Karmeghakuzhali. He successfully manages to track down a woman named Karmeghakuzhali, who is a television journalist and tries to convince her to act as his wife and "divorce" him. He also feigns muteness. Initially, she refuses, but she soon gives Gandhi the necessary documents to "divorce" her, pitying him. However, since both husband and wife need to be present at court at the time of divorce, Gandhi convinces Aarthi, an actress who works in Stray Factory, to act as Karmeghakuzhali at the court. But at the time of the divorce hearing, Aarthi disappears to the toilet, forcing a reluctant Karmeghakuzhali, who is present in the court, to take part in the divorce hearing. The subsequent events at the divorce hearing prove humiliating for Karmeghakuzhali, who also learns that Gandhi's muteness is feigned. Hence she leaves the court in tears with no "divorce" granted.

Later, Gandhi finds out that Pandi was deported upon arrival in London by immigration officials for giving false information and address verification while obtaining his passport, and he too finds himself in the dock for doing the same. However, he shows his and Pandi's original Voter ID cards to the immigration officials, getting them released, while the middlemen are arrested. Pandi reveals that he was sent to Sri Lanka and tortured by prison officials after he had tried to seek asylum in London as a Sri Lankan refugee, and humiliated by the recent events, he returns to his village.

Gandhi goes to the Regional Passport Office in Chennai and admits his crime to the Regional Passport Officer. The passport officer asks him to pay a fine of Rs.1,300 (equivalent to Rs. 1,600 or US$20 in 2020) to get Karmeghakuzhali's name removed from his passport. But in a last-minute decision, Gandhi chooses not to remove Karmeghakuzhali's name from his passport and instead proposes marriage to Karmeghakuzhali, who is initially taken aback but agrees. He soon obtains a British visa and leaves for London with the rest of the Stray Factory troupe.