Vaathi

Story:

Abhiram is a student in Thirupathi (Tamil)/Tripathi (Telugu) Educational Institutes run by Srinivas Thirupathi/Srinivas Tripathi, preparing for EAMCET along with his friends finds an old box full of tape records while cleaning his grandfather’s video shop which is going to sale for his Engineering seat that shop is well known as well as oldest video shop and first video shop in olden days. Abhi and his friends play the tape to check its contents (thinking of it as adult content), where they find a person teaching mathematics in a very clean and efficient manner, where the friends find the maths taught him found maths easy and check the box again.

They discover a receipt with the name A. M. Kumar (written in Tamil) or A. S. Murthy (written in Telugu) and the date 4 May 2000.

Additionally, they observe the location is listed as Sozhavaram (Tamil) or Siripuram (Telugu). The group decides to go there to track down A. M. Kumar/A. S. Murthy. The Village Government College peon Subbaya informs them that A. M. Kumar/A. S. Murthy is not a lecturer but rather a former student who is currently the DC of Kadapa after they had questioned other persons. The trio arrives in Kadapa and inquires about the man in the video. A. M. Kumar/A. S. Murthy informs them that the man is known as Balamurugan (Bala) in Tamil or Bala Gangadhar Tilak (Balu) in Telugu.

1993: During the period of economic privatization, education became essential for people to advance, and professional programmes like engineering and MBBS had high demand. Many investors have turned education into a business after noticing this significant increase in schooling. They began accepting substantial sums of money from parents in the name of quality education to get their kids into their private universities. At the same time, the government struggled to maintain its colleges and was unable to even pay the wages of the instructors. Even top-tier and seasoned government college instructors were engaged by private colleges to teach in their institutions.

1998: Due to a lack of teachers, many government colleges had to close. Education was no longer affordable for the underprivileged who couldn’t afford private universities. To support the current administration’s efforts to prevent the government from regularising its fee structure, Srinivas Thirupathi/Srinivas Tripathi, president of the private junior colleges association, devises a master plan to adopt all of the government junior colleges and send third-grade junior lecturers to those colleges. One of the professors, Bala/Balu, is moved to a government junior college to teach mathematics with Karthik, who teaches chemistry, and Prakash Reddy (in Tamil or Bulli Reddy (in Telugu), who teaches physics. Any lecturer who excels in their speciality would be promoted to senior lecturer when Bala/Balu requests it, according to Thirupathi/Tripathi.

The three professors are transported to Government Junior College, Sozhavaram (in Tamil) or Government Junior College, Siripuram (in Telugu) the following day. The village’s president, Muthu Pandian (in Tamil) or Patthi Papa Rao (in Telugu), welcomes them enthusiastically. While there, Bala/Balu meets Meenakshi, a biology lecturer, and develops feelings for her. None of the pupils arrive at the college the following day. The Telugu lecturer Thanigachalam (Tamil) / Deekshitulu (Telugu) informs Bala/Balu that all the warm welcome was just for publicity and that students come to the college for sweets and hots.

Meenakshi was promised by Bala/Balu that he will bring every student to class in three days. He requested that a gathering of all the villagers and their kids be set up by the president. Bala/Balu spoke about the necessity of education to make the kids and parents aware of its significance. Then, the pupils began showing up for the classes. Bala/Balu also welcomed back Muthu (Tamil) / Satti (Telugu), a former pupil who dropped out of school after his parents committed suicide and became an alcoholic and a smoker. Bala/Balu promises him that he would study while working and offers him a job paying 30 rupees per day. Additionally, he changed the lives of several kids who were disinterested in their studies, including Kumar/Murthy and his group.

Following their departure, Bala and Balu are now in charge of instructing MPC and BiPC students in physics and chemistry.

Bala/Balu saw that some students were mistreating one another owing to caste inequalities. By emphasising that necessity had no caste and that it brought people together, he broke down this barrier inside the class and from their minds. This act wowed Meenakshi, who developed feelings for him. All of the pupils completed the board exams. Thirupathi/Tripathi confronted Bala/Balu with his 100% pass rate and informed him that his own private college’s pass percentage is only 75% and that people desired to enrol in government colleges because of the calibre of their education.

In one of his private colleges, he tried to entice him with a senior lecturer promotion and salary increase, but Bala/Balu did not fall for it and stopped working for him. He even issued a challenge to Thirupathi/Tripathi, saying that he would ensure that all of the kids passed the subsequent exam with distinction and that they would all get high rankings on the TNPCEE/EAMCET.

By explaining that it is their guru dakshina (formal reciprocity) to Bala/Balu sir, A. M. Kumar/A.S. Murthy continues to tell the trio about how the theatre where they studied is now an EAMCET/IIT coaching centre for the underprivileged that was created by the 46 students who take turns teaching the students each year. A. M. Kumar/A. S. Murthy responds that he is unaware of Bala’s current location or even if he is still alive when questioned about it. But he is confident that Bala/Balu would have made education available to everyone wherever he went after Sozhavaram/Siripuram.

Meanwhile, in Ooty, it is revealed that a still-alive Bala/Balu and Meenakshi, who are now married, have established a school called Ansari School of Knowledge, named after Mohammed Ansari, to offer free education to the needy as his Guru Dakshina for motivating him to fulfil his dying ambition of becoming a wonderful teacher.

In a deleted scene, Abhi, under the direction of Kumar and Murthy, achieved the JEE All India First Rank, and his friends also excelled in the test. In front of Thirupathi/Tripathi during the Tripati success ceremony, Abhi shows study materials from Bala/Balu and gives full credit to Bala/Balu sir; however, the film ultimately damages his reputation.