Plot
The film opens with a young child climbing into a bullock cart and insisting that he also go with the cart to pick up the 'Shavundi' - a person who performs funeral rites and lives amongst the cremation grounds. Though essential to the funeral ceremonies, he is often considered frightening or unlucky. He certainly looks that way too - covered in ash and grime, sleeping in a bat-infested grove, and given ominous background music. The 'Shavundi' and child begin talking in the cart ride to the funeral, and then a flashback takes us to meet Lakshmi.
Life for Lakshmi turns head over heels when Vishnu, the new priest's son and priest-in-training, shows up in her village. Lakshmi is instantly intrigued by the new young man in town and strives to start a relationship with him. Certain antics and innocent clashes follow, and both of them fall in love.
Later, problems arose due to Vishnu's status in society; i. e. he is a brahmachari and cannot marry. Later, Lakshmi visits an astrologer who says that Lakshmi and Vishnu's life together is full of difficulties. He also suggests that if Lakshmi and Vishnu visit a particular temple, all their sins in this life will end, and it is believed that a new life begins. So as he suggested, they both go ahead while Vishnu and Lakshmi secretly get married. They also get intimate with each other as they are married secretly now.
Meanwhile, Lakshmi's aunt visits her, and she decides to fix her marriage with her son. Lakshmi's marriage is fixed with her cousin, Parthasarathy. When Lakshmi opens up about her love for Vishnu to her father, he blackmails her, threatening to kill himself. He also asks Vishnu to help him get Lakshmi married as he decided.
It was presumed that Vishnu's father would perform the rituals. But as he is ill, he forces Vishnu to perform the marriage rituals. Even though Vishnu hesitates, his father unknowingly forces him. Vishnu is forced to perform marriage rituals of his wife whom he secretly married. Seeing this, Lakshmi is heartbroken and helpless. She has to go through the ordeal. After marriage, Lakshmi's husband is informed that she loved Vishnu, and he says it's not a problem for him. Later, Lakshmi becomes pregnant. Lakshmi asks her husband to forgive her, and she will inform the others later. Lakshmi's husband says to her that he is impotent, and so he does not want anyone else to know the truth that Lakshmi is pregnant with another person's child.
Broken and distraught, Vishnu leaves his home and travels to many temples, hoping to find peace. He visits his father's old student and stays in his house. The student is now a renowned priest and impressed by Vishnu. He is interested in marrying his daughter Kokila to Vishnu, Kokila an advertisement actress, also likes Vishnu, but Vishnu is unable to forget Lakshmi and does not want to marry anyone else. Due to illness Kokila's father ask Vishnu to perform a puja which he was to perform. Even though he is hesitant, Vishnu agrees to go. The sudden view of kolam in front of the house reminds Vishnu of his Lakshmi, and when the door opens, he sees none other than Lakshmi itself he performs the puja for the child without knowing that it is his son, later due to grief and pain he returns to his father, he yells him about his journey and all about Lakshmi learning that Vishnu had performed the mangalyapuja for his own wife his father, a true brahmin curses that let Vishnu be unfit to perform any pujas and let him become a Shavundi which is considered a sinful duty and due to his guilty feelings Vishnu leaves and becomes a Shavundi.
At present, due to some circumstances, it is shown that Lakshmi's husband is dead, and Vishnu is the one who is performing funeral as Shavundi. Seeing this, Lakshmi becomes furious and reveals the secret that her only son cannot perform the last rites as his father is alive and he is none other than Vishnu, the one who blessed her son once as a pujari for long life. Hearing this, everyone is shocked.
Knowing the truth, Vishnu refused to become the Shavundi and take Lakshmi and his son away from society to lead a happy life.
