A school teacher (P. S. Selvaraj) enters the village to take up the vacant teacher's post in the village school. Upon his arrival, the school teacher is intrigued to see the villagers gathered in front of a large house. The village cartman (Periyar Dasan) tells him that the old man Elango, who is the village leader and respected by people, is between life and death, and the cartman the village tells the man's life story. In the past, Sundaravadanam (Sivachakravarthi) was a rich village chief, whom the villagers held in high esteem and he loved his village as much as his family. Being Sundaravadanam's eldest son, Elango (Vignesh) had a lot of responsibilities and followed in his father's footsteps. Sundaravadanam was against love marriage, for him the family honour came first and he only believed in arranged marriage. Elango then fell under the spell of the bubbly girl Sandhya (Varshini), daughter of the local temple priest (Dhadha Muthukumar). Elango declared his love to Sandhya, after initial refusal, she reciprocated. Sundaravadanam, who punished so many lovers before, found that hard to swallow that his own son was in love. Sundaravadanam then humiliated Sandhya's father in public. Instead of eloping, Elango decided to argue with his father to convince him to accept for the marriage. Sundaravadanam and Elango's mother Kamala shocked by the words of their son died of heart attack. Elango was obliged to become the new village chief as per the village's rule. The villagers then beat up Sandhya and her father for tarnishing the image of the village. Sandhya and her father left the village, but before Sandhya left, she told to Elango that her love was pure and faithful. Elango then remained single, he worked hard for the good of his family and village. Back to the present, Sandhya arrives to see his aged lover Elango who is battling for life. Sandhya remained single, she loves Elango so much that she will not marry another man. The film ends with Sandhya feeding cow's milk to Elango (Thalaikoothal) to end his sufferings and they both die.