Another sub-plot is that of Vaembu (played by Samantha Akkineni) who cheats on her husband, Mugil (played by Fahadh Faasil), with her ex-boyfriend, who dies after they have sex. Mugil comes home and finds the body stuffed in the fridge, and in a state of anger says that he will divorce Vaembu after they clear up this mess. When they are caught by a cop who only agrees to let them go if Vaembu sleeps with him, Mugil forces her to consent by explaining the severity of the consequences of being handed over to the police. Here, we see both the black and white sides of Mugil’s character, the male protagonist of this storyline. At many points during the film, he goes off on rants about the notions of patriarchy and caste, and attacks the government; this portrays him as a forward-thinking, morally sound man. At the same time, we see him being unable to single-handedly take full charge of the situation at hand, and working as a team with his wife. Mugil’s ego has suffered a severe blow: while he doesn’t reveal this to his wife, it is made known to the audience. In the scene in which he talks to the corpse of the other man, complaining about the hurt and humiliation he feels as a man, we see that the emotional pain he experiences is not due to his wife’s infidelity but because of his sense of inadequacy. Here, Kumararaja sheds light on the power dynamic between a man and a woman – the man needs the woman’s submission and loyalty towards him in order to prove the magnitude of his masculinity. At the end of the film, Vaembu and Mugil realise that they both still want to make their marriage work and Mugil looks past her infidelity, realising that he had not been a good husband to her in the first place. This aspect of the film subverts the ideal of a chaste wife and recognises the sexuality of the woman.
