The land of white elephants) is a 1988 Indian Malayalam-language political satire crime film directed by Priyadarshan, written by Sreenivasan and produced by Maniyanpilla Raju.

[2][3] C Pavithran Nair AKA CP is a young construction contractor who strives hard to make a living between his family and employees.

His brother Radhakrishnan Nair is a successful contractor who has big contract works at hand, most of which he gained through unlawful ways.

One day, a bridge constructed by CP's brother Radhakrishnan Nair collapses while a bus is on it and many people get killed.

To cover the issue, Nair, with the help of his brother-in-law Prabhakaran, devise a plan to put the responsibility on their driver's shoulders.

He is told to say to the police that he blew the bridge up with a bomb when his employers', i.e., Radhakrishnan Nair and family refused to raise his wages when he asked them to.

One day in some disagreement on not partaking in a strike organized by CP, Radha is slapped by him and the relationship is broken there until it rekindles later.

Finally, they arrange for an Elephant to pull the road roller, otherwise as Radha said, the Municipality would charge rent for not moving it away from its compound.

CP's youngest sister Deepa gets a marriage proposal from an influential and corrupt politician who had helped Radhakrishnan and Prabhakaran during the Bridge-collapse case.

(CP's sister is later killed from what he believed from hearing that it was a blast of a stove, but the truth is that Deepa is raped by the friends of her politician- husband after which she commits suicides.)

Meanwhile, the State Minister gets a letter requesting to announce an investigation on NREP projects which was misused by CP's brother and brother-in-law.

Vellanakalude Nadu initially had a different screenplay which was supposed to be shot with actors such as Balan K. Nair, but just four days before the date of commencement of filming, Priyadarshan told Sreenivasan that he is not fully satisfied with the story and it needs to be changed.

[5] The film has only one song, "Paaduvaan Ormakalail", sung by M. G. Sreekumar and Sujatha Mohan, with music done by M. G. Radhakrishnan and lyrics by Kaithapram Damodaran Namboothiri.

In 2010, a Hindi remake titled Khatta Meetha was released, directed by Priyadarshan himself, starring Akshay Kumar and Trisha Krishnan.