The film has a novel beginning. Sivaji sits in a park with his friends, holding a copy of the novel Paavai Vilakku in his hands, Sivaji talks about its greatness to his friends, and then begins to read it.Now the film cuts to the beginning of the story in which he plays the hero. The heroine is Sowcar Janaki, the woman he marries, and they have a child Kalyani. Kumari Kamala is a dancer to whom the hero is attracted, but for many reasons they do not marry because he already has a wife. Pandari Bai, a young widow, is also drawn to him, but she begins to treat him as her brother. M.N. Rajam is another young woman who stays with the married couple and brings up the child as her own. She too falls in love with the hero, but cannot marry him. An accident on the steps of the heros house ends in the death of the child. Rajam for obvious reasons is not informed of the childs death. Later she too meets with a similar accident and when she comes to know the shocking secret about the child, she dies in the arms of her friend Janaki and the hero surrounded by all the relations.