Appukuttan Nair or 'Appu' (Mohanlal) is a struggling unemployed youth who arrives in Mumbai to meet his sister and brother-in-law (Augustine (actor)). His father has been falsely implicated in a bank fraud and wants to sell his ancestral property to pay towards the litigation. For that he needs his sister's approval, but is abused and turned away by his brother-in-law. Disappointed, Appu seeks out his old pal Nooruddin or 'Noor' (Sreenivasan), who is working in a fruit juice vending shop in Mumbai. Noor himself is a hapless uneducated youth working for his uncle Beeran (Mamukkoya), who is a treacherous money lender, with a hope to marry his daughter Maimoona. They plan to open a paint shop but need 1.25 lakh Rupees to rent a shop as prerequisite to get a bank loan. With no other way in sight, they swindle Beeran out of 1.25 lakh Rupees. Appukuttan then tries to get the loan sanctioned but he is rebuffed by a new Bank manager Varghese (Maniyanpilla Raju) who had taken charge by then.