In a spacious ancestral house, Janakiyamma lives with the help of a distant relative girl and a small staff who tend her cows and poultry. Her elder son Narayanankutty is married to Ambika, and they work as central government servants in Bombay. They have two girls, Sheenu and Meenu. Her younger son Gopan is married to Bindu and works in the Middle East. She also had a deceased daughter (not shown in the movie) and her son is Venu.
The story opens as the children and grandchildren arrive to celebrate the mother’s 60th birthday. Janakiyamma is very happy with everybody’s enthusiasm and believes everyone is genuinely enjoying their stay at the house. Meanwhile, Gopan and Bindu have paid an advance for a flat in Bangalore and want their share of the ancestral property (the house) to be sold to pay the rest of the amount. Narayanankutty and Ambika learn about this and are upset at uprooting the mother. Narayanankutty is helpless and disappointed because they have not yet bought a house for themselves in Bombay and is visibly envious of the prosperity of his brother. One night, a visitor arrives: Kunju, the father’s old servant from a lower caste, who is now well off and has four sons in the Middle East. He offers to buy the property, which upsets Narayanankutty because he, like his mother, has a superiority complex over the castes below them. Bindu has bought a TV for Amma and tries to project to her that Amma is not safe alone in that house. Janakiyamma overhears Bindu and Ambika discussing selling the house and waiting for Amma to die. She is heartbroken and accepts the house to be sold. She also agrees to go to an old age home suggested by Bindu and Gopan. She refuses to go with Narayanankutty and Ambika.
She goes to the old age home and passes away the next day. Gopan, now with only his family in the house waiting to be sold, has nightmares. He feels really guilty about his deeds and loses his peace of mind. He decides not to sell the house his mother loved so much and to spend the rest of his life there.
The film explores how materialistic pressures can corrode family bonds and how the past sometimes seems to hold little value in the face of present desires. There is also a side plot of the on-and-off love angle between Sheenu and Venu and Gopan’s daughters enjoying the stint in the ancestral house—running around with livestock, bathing in ponds, and the rustic rhythms of village life. The girls eventually urge their father to stay back, making his decision to remain in the ancestral house easier. Sheenu, brought up in Mumbai, initially dislikes the relative girl at the house because of her overly friendly manner. She later learns in an embarrassing moment from Venu that she understands all the bad English phrases the girl uses, highlighting how education and urban perspective shape misunderstandings. Padmarajan, with his skillful narrative, clearly shows how urban life often casts villagers as primitive.
