Sundari is young mother of two in a small village outside Madurai. She has joined a women's self help group and wants to use the microfinance loan she will get through it to start a business. Most people fail at their businesses and her husband is scornful of her ambitions - she has never been more than a housewife. As she struggles to find her feet in a trade, the village erupts into a flurry of politics with the coming of a woman from the city looking to start a garment factory in the area. This is a story of a village woman trying to define what success means to her in the context of an expanding world view, and of a family struggling to find their equation at the crossroads of what is and what could be. Shakti Pirakkudhu was evolved out of numerous conversations with self help group women in the villages around Madurai and is intended to create a role model that inspires the rural poor to look to the larger world to raise their aspirations and take charge of their own progress.