Ramu Shastrigal's family suffers due to poverty; on many nights, they go to bed hungry. When Lalitha's hungry brother shares a meal with a beggar, she decides to disobey her father and with Udaiyaar's help, obtains employment. Her income supplements the family and their standard of living improves. Her brother Thyagu aspires to become a doctor; Lalitha runs from pillar to post to get him a seat in a medical college. When she meets a man for facilitating his admission in a medical college in Madras, he exploits her desperation and rapes her. Lalitha keeps quiet about this incident and goes back to work. She shifts to Hyderabad, where she gets promoted with a higher salary. Immediately after taking up the new assignment, she asks her employer for a salary advance to be sent to Thyagu for his admission fee; realising her vulnerability, he demands her carnal company. She yields and he gives her the money. Demands from her family increase and to earn more money, she takes to prostitution. While her family lives prosperously, Lalitha suffers silently.