Plot

Two tenants and a landlord look for answers to all their money problems - but when their opportunity arrives, will they know what to do with it?

Baburao, a garage owner always in financial trouble has a tenant named Raju, who has not paid his rent for 2 years. He also has another tenant named Shyam, who has come to the city to look for a job in his late father's place but is unable to find employment. The three men quarrel amongst themselves frequently. Then one day, the three men get a phone call from a kidnapper named Kabira and decide to make use of this phone call to overcome their financial problems - pretend to be the real kidnappers, increase the ransom amount, keep the incremental amount for themselves, and then give the original ransom demanded to Kabira. Will they get away with this idea?—Tanya

Shyam (Sunil Shetty), an unemployed youth and Raju (Akshay Kumar), a laundry worker are boarders at the home of garage owner Baburao (Paresh Rawal). Each dream of making it big, and one evening, a cross-connection on their phone lets them in on a kidnapping scheme that they figure can lead them to the big bucks.—Joyojeet Pal

Ghanshyam "Shyam" (Sunil Shetty) comes to Bombay from a small village to claim a job with a bank that employed his late father, Sunderlal, who died in a fire several years ago. According to rules and regulations, the bank must hire him in his father's place. Competing with him is the daughter of yet another employee, who was also killed in the fire, Anuradha Shivshankar Panikar (Tabu). Shyam rooms with a myopic but kind-hearted garage owner, Baburao Apte (Paresh Rawal), who has also rented another of his rooms' to Raju (Akshay Kumar), who dreams of making it big in the city but is currently broke and unable to pay rent for several months now. Shyam has come to the city so that he can return Rs. 35000 he borrowed from Kharak Singh (Om Puri), who in turn needs the money to get his sister married. Baburao needs money to pay off his debtors. And to add to this chaos, Baburao keeps on getting a series of wrong numbers on his telephone, asking for Deviprasad. One day he gets a call from Kabira (Gulshan Grover) who demands a ransom from Baburao, thinking it is Deviprasad (Kulbhushan Kharbanada). The trio decide to "liase" between the victim's dad and the kidnappers and keep some of the money for themselves. Things get even more hilariously chaotic, as the trio are on the run from Kabeera; the police; more wrong numbers; and Kharak Singh.—rAjOo (gunwanti@hotmail.com)

Raju and Shyam are tenants of Baburao. All the three are in dire need (and have fantasies) of big money. Baburao needs money to pay back debts his father incurred, Raju needs money to make his mother happy and Shyam needs money to pay back Kharak Singh, a villager friend with a wedding to arrange quickly. Of these, Shyam is the only one to get a job, but he sacrifices it to Anuradha Paniker, a woman with serious troubles (and with whom he eventually develops a hate-to-love relationship). One day, a gangster named Kabira kidnaps the granddaughter of millionaire Devi Prasad. But when he calls Baburao's telephone number by mistake to demand the ransom, Raju sees the answer to all their money problems. He suggests they play a game, and do some "hera pheri" - and that's when the trouble starts.—Q. Leo Rahman

Raju (Akshay Kumar) is a tenant of Baburao Ganpatrao Apte alias Babu Bhaiyya (Paresh Rawal) and has not paid his rent to Baburao since a long time. Raju does not believe in hard work and wants to earn easy money. He cons everybody, even his mother (Sulabha Arya), who thinks that her son works in Calcutta. Baburao, a bespectacled near-sighted man, runs a garage called "Star Garage", he has a familial debt with many money-lenders, and has hard time with his moneylenders.

Shyam aka Ghanshyam (Sunil Shetty) has come to Mumbai from Gurgaon seeking a job in his late father's bank. Apparently, his father died in a fire that broke out in the bank and he claims that the bank owes him the job. He badly needs the money for his friend Khadak Singh's (Om Puri) sister's marriage. A young woman, Anuradha Panniker (Tabu), is also in the running after the job, her father having died two minutes before Shyam's. Shyam meets Raju and a misunderstanding causes Shyam to think that Raju is a pickpocket. A fight ensues between the two.

Later that evening, Shyam reaches "Star Garage". Baburao agrees to take him in as a paying boarder, although he warns Shyam that he will have to share the place with another boarder. Unfortunately for Shyam, the other boarder is Raju, who has not paid Baburao a single penny of rent in the last two years. The two men come to blows again the minute they see each other. Raju manages to trick Shyam into signing a document that says he will give the bank position to Anuradha. When Shyam discovers the fraud, he threatens to sue both the bank and Anuradha.

Panicked, the bank manager tries to get Anuradha to seduce Shyam, but he's having none of it. Eventually, she makes a deal to give him the position in exchange for money. Shyam is unable to get the money, and when he goes to bluff his way through the deal, he discovers that Anuradha is living with her mentally ill mother in abject poverty. She admits that she discovered that Shyam's own financial situation is as bad as her own, and that she didn't have the heart to go through with her plan, so she gives him her resignation letter. Shyam refuses, insisting that he could never live with himself, and that she should keep the position. The two of them become friends and even begin a romance.

Baburao is constantly getting people calling and wanting to speak to a Mr. Deviprasad (Kulbhushan Kharbanda), which annoys him to no end. One day, however, things become serious when a kidnapper named Kabeera (Gulshan Grover) asks for Deviprasad--only this time, he's asking for a ransom to be paid on Deviprasad's granddaughter. The trio figures out that the phone numbers for Star Garage and Star Fisheries, of which Deviprasad is the owner, have gotten transposed in the phone book.

Now, Raju decides to benefit from this situation and makes Shyam call Deviprasad posing as Kabira and demand double the amount asked by Kabeera so that they can pocket the other half themselves while satisfying the ransom demand. However, when one employee realizes that Deviprasad's granddaughter might have been kidnapped, he involves the police. Both Raju and Kabeera's plans are thwarted, and as punishment for involving the police, Kabeera doubles the ransom.

Following their brush with Kabeera and the police, Shyam and Baburao inform Raju that they're out of it, but Raju eventually shames them back into helping him. They tell Deviprasad to meet them at the rendezvous point an hour before Kabeera's appointed time. When they meet with Deviprasad, he demands to see his granddaughter. Eventually, the trio are forced to admit that they are not actually the kidnappers, just three guys in over their heads, but they will get Deviprasad's granddaughter back for him. To further prove their sincerity, they unmask themselves, give Deviprasad their names and tell him that if he doesn't trust them, he can turn them in. Deviprasad chooses to believe them.

In a hilarious melee that follows between Khadak Singh and his men, Kabeera and his cronies, police and the trio, our heroes save the girl and return her to her grateful grandfather. Raju collects all the money, while Shyam and Baburao head towards their home. When they find that Raju is not at home, they think that he may have fled with the money. Enraged, they call the police and concoct a story to implicate all 3 of them in the kidnapping. No sooner than they hang up with the police, a jubilant Raju enters, carrying a suitcase. He explains to the dumbfounded duo that the car broke down, but he fixed it as well as repaid Shyam's debt, but he's here now. He is confused by his friends' glum expressions and asks what's wrong. They explain that they though he stiffed them, so they turned themselves in and implicated him too. Raju breaks down and tells them that in this world, all he really cares for is his mother, who will now see her son being arrested and sent to jail.

As expected, the police arrive to take the trio away to jail. Raju requests that they not be led out through the front door, lest his mother see them. At the last minute, just as the police are about to shut the door on the van, Deviprasad appears, telling the police that there's been a terrible misunderstanding. He tells them that they misunderstood that he was actually giving them the money, and that he's not pressing charges against them. Not having any reason to hold them anymore, the police release the trio.

They thank Deviprasad for intervening on their behalf, but Deviprasad insists that he should be thanking them, and that he meant what he said about the money being theirs. Anything the trio could possibly want in the future, Deviprasad insists, is theirs for the asking. Suddenly, the phone rings again and the trio realize that it may be for Deviprasad. But Deviprasad tells them that this time the phone is for them. They pick up the phone and suddenly become tense. Then it is shown that the caller is Deviprasad's granddaughter saying, "Kabira Speaking". The film ends with the trio breaking into uncontrollable laughter.