- An educated man spends his days writing letters for the varied inhabitants of his small, poor, and illiterate village, in this political and social satire.
- It was Jawaharlal Nehru who changed the name of a small town, Durjanpur, to Sajjanpur, and that was about all the change that had occurred there since then. The town still lacks adequate infrastructure, no safe drinking water; in a 24 hour period, electricity is out for almost 23 hours, and most people, even though they own mobile phones, cannot speak or write English. One of the residents, who does speak and write English fluently, Mahadev Kuswah, lives with his mother, and both run a small fresh vegetable store after his dad abandoned them when he was very young. He has since obtained a degree from Satna University, and assists residents with written correspondence for a fee. Amongst his clients are Man Singh - who wants his homicidal wife to stand for the Municipal elections; a eunuch, Munnibai Mukhrani, who also to stands for elections; a snake charmer who is trying to make a living with fake snakes and is trying to locate his father; Ram Kumar, who is in love with a widow, Shobha; frantic Ramsakhi Pannawali, who desperately wants to marry off her rebellious Manglik daughter, Vindhya, to a Saturday-born dog; while Mahadev uses his skills to break Kamla's marriage with Bansiram.—rAjOo (gunwanti@hotmail.com)
- Mahadev (Shreyas Talpade) is an unemployed graduate with a Bachelor of Arts from Satna college, who is forced to make a living writing letters for the uneducated people of his village. His real ambition is to become a novel writer. Through his humble occupation, Mahadev has the potential to impact numerous lives. The movie is a satirical, but warm heart portrait of life in rural India.
Among Mahadev's customers are: Mahadev's childhood crush Kamla (Amrita Rao) is desperate for communication from her husband Bansi Ram (Kunal Kapoor), who works as a laborer at a dockyard in Mumbai. In the letters to her husband, a jealous Mahadev writes the opposite of the loving messages Kamla wants to convey, while faking what her husband has written to her. A hurried mother (Ila Arun) who wants to get her Manglik daughter, Vindhya (Divya Dutta) married. A landlord, Ram Singh, whose wife is a candidate for the village Sarpanch, and who wants all her political rivals eliminated from the race. The landlord goes to the extent of getting Mahadev to write letters to the district collector claiming that his wife's Muslim rival is the wife of a Pakistani agent.
A eunuch Munni who is contesting the elections for the village Sarpanch but fears the threats from the landlord. Mahadev has been asked by Munni to write a campaign song for her. Munni's house is vandalized by Ram Singh's goons & she gets Mahadev to write an impassioned letter to the district collector to help protect her rights & to provide her security for the duration of the campaign, Munni gets the protection & is elected Sarpanch. A love-lorn pharmacy attendant, Ram Kumar (Ravi Kishan), who is crazy about the widowed daughter-in-law Shobha Rani (Rajeshwari Sachdev) of a retired army soldier. Ram gets Mahadev to write a love letter to Shobha, but it is intercepted by the father in law, who runs after Ram, but Ram manages to escape. The father in law eventually catches up, but instead of beating Ram, he begs Ram to marry Shobha.
Mahadev manages to get his friend engaged, police protection for Munni, and almost kisses Kamla before they are interrupted. However Munni is seriously injured in the head & dies (supposedly Ram Singh had a role to play in this), and he learns a shocking truth about Kamla's husband, that he had been sending money after selling his blood in Mumbai city & that he is going to sell his kidney to get enough money to buy a shack & bring Kamla to Mumbai. Mahadev is appalled that his letters created this misunderstanding & brought things to this juncture. He mortgages his farms & goes to Mumbai to give money to Kamla's husband. It soon turns out that the story was a fictional novel written by the real Mahadev, but it is mostly based on his own experiences. Though it turns out that some of the villagers didn't exactly have happy endings, Mahadev sorts out his mistakes and accomplishes his long-held dream of writing a novel.
As Mahadev, under pseudo name Sukhdev, reveals that Munnibai became a successful politician, becoming an MLA, or a Member of the State Legislature, with high connections and powerful people surrounding her. It is also revealed that Kamla and Bansi are happy in small house in Mumbai, who come to visit Sajjanpur every Diwali. In midst of all these good news, Mahadev notes that Ram Kumar and Shobha Rani were lynched because members of their community opposed a widow getting re-married. Mahadev also notes that he got married to Vindhya, the Manglik, after wooing her by writing 40 letters. While most people consider a Manglik to be a great misfortune, Mahadev notes that he became successful due to his marriage, as he paid down his farm land mortgage, built a wonderful house and realized his dream of writing a novel.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content
More from this title
More to explore
Most anticipated Indian movies and shows
Percentage shows amount of top page views.