Varavelpu

Murali (Mohanlal) returns back to his home town after spending 7 long years in gulf with an intention to settle down peacefully in his hometown. Much against to the greedy wishes of his family members, he decides to buy a second hand bus that comes along with a route permit. This is when he faces a lot of hurdles. From an inefficient driver to cheating conductor to a cunning union leader, Murali's life is taken for a toss with ever growing challenges one after the other.

Murali returns home after working for 7 hard years in the Gulf. He expresses his desire to settle in the country after boring hardships, to which his elder brothers get dismayed. When he expresses to put his hard-earned money and start a business, Kumaran (Janardhanan) asks him to invest in his toddy business, while other older brother Narayanan ( Oduvil Unnikrishnan) asks him to invest in an AC restaurant. His uncle advises Murali that, even though Murali had been sending his brothers money, none of them thought of investing in Murali's name and asks him to invest in Coconut farms. He comes across an ad for a second-hand bus along with route-permit and checks it out with his friend Hamsa (Mamukkoya). As a favor to his brother Kumaran, he employs Chathutty (Innocent) as bus driver, Valsan (Jagadish) as conductor. Hamsa joins as the cleaner. He regularly faces inspections from brake inspector Sreenivasan. One day, Chathutty reports to Murali and Hamsa that Valsan stole the money and is now missing. Murali and Hamsa search for him but he is nowhere to be seen. Renewing his license as conductor, Murali himself becomes the conductor. Later when Murali was at the bus parking lot, Hamsa found Valsan at the food stand. Murali sees Valsan and beats him but Valsan escapes.

Prabhakaran (Murali) is Union Leader for Labourers. He admonishes and warns of severe action to Murali if he doesn't apologize to Valsan, give him his remuneration and his job back as conductor to which Murali refuses. Another day, Labour's Union were protesting in front of Murali's bus and blocking it. Suddenly, Ramakrishnan (Thilakan) arrives and attends the matter and tries to bring compromise between the two parties. One night, Rema's drunk father arrives at Rema's house and bumps into the bus. He causes a hard time to Hamsa and Murali and Murali carries the drunk father to the house. Rema tells Murali her unfortunate story. Suddenly, Hamsa was being attacked and a gang led by Prabhakaran was damaging the bus. Murali dashes to the scene and he fights off the gang. The bus on the other hand is damaged. The townsfolk come to look at the bus's poor state. Ramakrishnan discovered that Prabhakaran was responsible for the damage and is furious with him.

Later Prabhakaran was giving a speech to the workers, to shut down a company because they didn't accept his proposals, when Murali arrived. He grabbed the microphone and gave his own speech of how the strikes affect livelihood of so many families who become poverty stricken and lose lives. This turned into a ruckus between Murali and Prabhakaran until the police settled it down. Ramakrishnan helps Murali and he is thankful. One other night, Murali and Rema were having a conversation, where Murali reveals he has applied for a visa and is going back to work in Gulf. This film ends on a note with Murali guaranteeing he will write to Rema whenever he finds time,and he boards the bus.

• Mohanlal as Muraleedharan
• Revathi as Rema (Voice dubbed by Anandavally) Murali's love interest
• Sreenivasan as Vehicle Inspector
• Murali as Prabhakaran, a greedy and wicked politician
• Jagadish as Valsan, a former friend turned to a traitor
• Thilakan as Labour Officer Ramakrishnan, friend of Murali
• Innocent as Chathukutty, the bus driver
• Janardhanan as Kumaran
• Oduvil Unnikrishnan as Narayanan
• Mamukkoya as Hamsa, Murali's assistant
• Sankaradi as Murali's Uncle
• K. P. A. C. Lalitha as Santha, /Kumaran's wife
• Meena as Rukmini
• Thikkurissy Sukumaran Nair as Govindan Nair
• Bobby Kottarakkara as Pappan
• Krishnan Kutty Nair as Rema's father
• Praseetha Menon
• Sindhu Varma

The film was based on a real-life incident in Sreenivasan's father's life. Sathyan Anthikkad got the story idea while listening to Sreenivasan when he recalled how his family ended in financial debt after his communist father was labeled as a capitalist after he bought a bus.[1] The film was initially planned to be directed by actor Prem Nazir before his death.

All lyrics are written by Kaithapram Damodaran; all music is composed by Johnson.

In 2003, the then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee mentioned the film and Mohanlal in his inaugural speech at the Global Investor Meet held in Kerala. He said: "I am told that there is a Malayalam movie called Varavelppu in which your famous actor Mohanlal acts as a Gulf-returned Keralite. He invests his savings in a small business venture with high hopes. But in the end, he is forced to close it down after going through many unpleasant experiences. Therefore, this conference should serve as an occasion for introspection".[2]

• Varavelpu on IMDb