In the Kuttanad, the back-waters of Kerala lives Chirutha (Deepti Naval) whose avaricious father wants to marry her off to the first person who can provide the dowry he has asked for. So Koren (Inayatullah Kantroo), a poor laborer who has long loved her, decides to sell himself into bonded labor to the local landlord, the chambran (Sudhir Dalvi) in return for a loan for that amount. The marriage is duly solemnized and the two are fairly happy until the harvest when Koren makes the mistake of asking the landlord his share of the crop (after deducting the loan, of course).

The duration of this song-less film is 120 minutes. But the duration of the foreign version prepared for display abroad is only 90 minutes.