Cast

Credited cast:
	Mahesh	...	Jyothi Lingam
	Anjali	...	Kani
	A. Venkatesh	...	Karungali
	Pandi	...	Marimuthu
	John Vijay	...	Director
	Sneha	...

Storyline

Angaadi Theru (English: Market Street) 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 in to a bus and the song "Kadaigalai pesum" starts. As they don't have any house, they found a place in street where masonry workers are sleeping. While they were dreaming, a fire engine after colliding with another vehicle completely loses its control comes out of the way and hits the people sleeping in street. The next scene shows the jammed vehicle, blood, crying people and the hospital where jothi is lying in a stretcher with blood all over this body. Policeman were asking jothi "What is your name?Where are you from?". He just murmurs "Kani,Kani....Kani". Now the flashback starts and goes 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, and 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, are employed at the Senthil Murugan Stores run by the big businessman. In 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 when they play around during duty hours. As 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 than without any human dignity. After some quarrels and arguments slowly Jyoti and Kani falls love with each other.

In the meantime, actress Sneha visits the showroom for the shooting of the advertisement. Marimuthu is a die hard fan of Sneha. He has collected all the pictures of sneha from her childhood and was keeping with him. He was very interested to see sneha. Amidst of the security, he caught sneha's attention and meets her and shows her the album. Sneha is surprised and happy to see the album. She says to Marimuthu that she will keep the album herself. While Jyothi and Kani were talking in the showroom, the supervisor comes there. On seeing this, they both hides in the place. Unfortunately the security locks the door of the showroom without knowing this. Kani shouts at Jyothi and they don't know what to do. They have to spend the whole night there itself. After some time they are putting the dresses in that room one by one, sings and dances.

Like this they spends the night and the next day morning they goes to their places as if they came only in the morning.Unfortunately the dance by Jyothi and Kani got caught in the camera running there for the shooting with Sneha. Annachi sees this and calls the supervisor. Supervisor caughts both Jyothi and Kani and beats them. Then the supervisor gives a complaint to the police that Jyothi had stolen a costly saree from the shop and the police takes Jyothi away. Jyothi tells the inspector that he knows all the fraud activities done by annachi. So the inspector calls annachi and advises him to take back the complaint. Otherwise it will be difficult if Jyothi tells all these things to media. So Jyothi is released from the custody.

Jyothi goes to the showroom and threatens the supervisor that if they did not release Kani, he will tell these things to the public there. On hearing this, Annachi orders the supervisor to send Kani with Jyothi. They both leave the place and searches for job in all the shops in that street. Finally a blind old aged person who is selling clothes on the platform tells Jyothi that he will give commission to them if they help him in selling his clothes. So they starts selling clothes and earns some money for the day. The old man tells him a street where they can safely sleep. They goes to the street and that is the end of flashback.

The camera now points to the hospital where Jyothi and Kani are admitted. Jyothi regains his consciousness and sees Marimathu there. Marimuthu joined as makeup man to Sneha. Jyothi had slight injuries on his head,legs and hands. Jyothi asks Marimuthu about Kani. But Marimuthu remains silent. So Jyothi himself gets out from his bed irrespective of the injury in his legs and searches to find Kani. He was shocked to see Kani there without legs. She has lost her both legs in the accident. Marimuthu advises Jyothi to forget Kani as she cannot do things on her own and she needs someone's help. If Jyothi takes care of her, who will earn for his family.

Many things are running in Jyothi's mind and finally he decides to marry Kani. The film ends with the scene showing Kani sitting in the platform selling things and Jyothi sells things by walking in the street.

Angadi Theru is about how these two survive in a concentration camp like condition and what happens when fate perpetually smiles very cruelly at them. Sneha lights up the happenings in a small cameo as herself by doing a commercial advertisement for that Stores. This film is considered to be a milestone in Tamil cinema due its raw content. This movie reflects few happening at the two Popular Stores in Ranganathan Street in Chennai.

  

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