King Rajasekhara, the king of Pandalam, finds a child on the banks of River Pampa during one of his hunting expeditions. A saint who appears there advises the king to adopt this child name him as Manikantan

1957 film

Aruna lives a wealthy lifestyle with her paternal grandfather. She has come of marriageable age and he wants her to get married to a young man named Pran. But Aruna finds him possessive, controlling, and hot-tempered, and will not have anything to do with him, so she decides to run away. Her grandfather asks Pran to search everywhere for her, and Pran takes a oath that he will not return home until he finds her. He does find her and brings her back home. Shortly thereafter, her grandpa develops complications and passes away, leaving her in the care of Pran and a servant named Harriya. When Pran offers to marry her, she refuses and tells him that she loves another man, Ashok, she met when she ran away, the one who lives in an abandoned bus in the country. When they locate Ashok, he is unable to recognize her, and is in the company of a beautiful street dancer, Roopa, who he hopes to get married to soon. Was her romance with Ashok all a dream for Aruna, or is there some other reason why...