Movie Info

Suffering the season of drought, most villagers at Laholi have kept their possessions mortgaged to the local Thakurani Karamkali (Sudha Chandran). However Lilaram (Paresh Rawal) is the only educated man in the village who has the job of intermediary between the lottery organization and the village, for which he receives a commission whenever a villager wins; thus, he has a relatively good but volatile income. One day he reads the winning lottery numbers and realizes that one of the tickets has won the top prize. He devises a plan to obtain the winning ticket and present it to the commission as his own. He hosts a dinner and invites all the villagers who play the lottery, but the man he is looking for does not turn up. By elimination he deduces that the winner is Anthony, and the reason that he didn't turn up because he knew that he had won the top prize. Hoping to at least extract his commission, he goes to Anthony's house, and finds him dead, the winning ticket clutched in his hand and a happy expression on his face. Lilaram attempts to pry the ticket from Anthony's fingers but is thwarted by Anthony's body in rigor mortise. Lilaram eventually succeeds in freeing it with a knife; at this point Ballu (Om Puri) the local dairy farmer, enters the house and discovers him standing over Anthony's corpse with what appears to be the murder weapon in his hand. What next? Will Lilaram be accusssed of Anthony's murder? What is the fate of the lottery ticket? The confusion forms the later part of the story.