Thendral is a 2009 Indian Tamil-language soap opera that aired Monday through Friday on Sun TV. It was broadcast from 7 December 2009 to 17 January 2015 for 1340 episodes.

Plot

This serial revolves around the main character Thulasi (Shruthi Raj). Thulasi's mother left her when she was a child for the sake of money and, ever since, her family has shunned her, especially her father and stepmother. The only family member that genuinely cares for her is her grandmother (S. N. Lakshmi). Thulasi's only dream is to continue her studies to become an engineer and help her family, and she gets the highest marks on her 12th board exams. Thulasi's father Muthumanikam a.k.a. Manikam (Subhalekha Sudhakar) dreams about seeing his son, Mohan (Ayyappan) becoming an engineer, yet his dreams are put on hold due to the lack of money. Knowing this, a break-inspector and a thug in the 40s, Velayudham (Nizhalgal Ravi) approaches them to help Manikam's dream come true, under one condition: that is if he agrees to get Thulasi married to him. A greedy Manickam coaxes Thulasi that the only way she can wipe away the sin committed by her mother, who had fled away with another man, is by marrying Velayudham. Stung by guilt, Thulasi agrees to marry Velayudham despite their age difference. Velayudham, in return, offers Manickam a massive amount of cash. But fate has other plans, and so by mistake, the photos of Thulasi and that of another girl Lavanya (Neelima Rani) mix up in a photo studio and ends up in the hands of the hero – Tamizharasu (Deepak Dinkar). Lavanya happens to be the sister of Tamizharasu. On seeing Thulasi's photo, she conveys that she would like to have a sister-in-law as beautiful as Thulasi. Attracted by Thulasi's beauty and the frequent taunts by Lavanya, Tamizharasu falls in love with Thulasi. Thulasi refuses to accept Tamizharasu's love and publicly insults him at his bank.