In the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean on the island of Troldø lives a single farming family. The grandmother Gunhild is the only woman on the island and her son Enok is unable to find a wife.
Milja, living in Kristiania in the late 1800s, becomes pregnant, but the father of the child, Julius, is not around after the child has been born and Milja decides to adopt it.
Nirmala (Padmini) is a poor but talented young dancer who falls in love with a rich man's son Sekar (Gemini Ganesan), but he is forced to marry a rich man's daughter Prathiba (Tambaram Lalitha).
The film tells the story of two twins separated in childhood who reunite when they are older. One of them has grown between outlaws and has become one of them, a murderous bandit who frightens the region.
Two plays by William Saroyan portraying writers stymied, inspired, frustrated, excited, listful, wistful, slothful, awed, unnerved, perhaps corrupted and perplexed by the promise and let-down writing holds for them.