Nenjirukkum Varai (transl. As long as there is a heart) is a 1967 Indian Tamil-language film, directed and produced by C. V. Sridhar. The film stars Sivaji Ganesan, Muthuraman, Gopalakrishnan, K. R. Vijaya and Geethanjali. It revolves around a man struggling with poverty, falling in love with his house owner's daughter.
Sridhar initially decided to make Nenjirukkum Varai as revolving around the theme of the 1965 war between India and Pakistan; the story was dropped after Sridhar learnt that Lal Bahadur Shastri and Muhammad Ayub Khan signed the Tashkent Declaration. Retaining the title, he developed a new story inspired by the Bengali play Shudha (transl. Hunger). The film was shot in black-and-white to emphasise the central theme of poverty, and none of the cast members applied make-up for much of the film.
Nenjirukkum Varai was released on 2 March 1967 and failed at the box office.
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Plot
Raghu does odd jobs looking for a big break. He and his friend Peter rent a part of a house. The owner Natarajan's daughter is Raji and Raghu falls in love with her. Raghu meets Siva and likes his character and lets him stay in his rented house. Raji and Siva fall in love. Raghu is devastated when he learns about it, but gets over it and decides to help them. Siva is away when Raji's father dies and Raghu takes care of the orphaned Raji, who is waiting for Siva to come back for her. Meanwhile, Siva hears people gossiping about Raghu and Raji and believes they are having an affair. When Raghu confronts him, he agrees to marry Raji if Raghu agrees to go away. Raghu agrees. How they reconcile forms the rest of the story.