It is revealed that Gautham was actually a musicologist. About six months earlier, he had traveled to a hill resort in Tamil Nadu for his research on musical patterns in the sounds of nature. While in that trip, he encountered three men - Prakash (Shajin), Soundar (Ponvannan), and Shanmugam (Thalaivasal Vijay) - who all hailed from Pondicherry. Gayathri (Kaveri) was a local girl who was teased frequently by the three men. Gayathri regularly ran up to Gautham to seek refuge from the men's pursuits. Then, one day, the three men got drunk and began molesting Gayathri. Hearing her screams, Gautham and his friend Balaji attempted to rescue Gayathri. In the ensuing fight, Balaji's knee was struck with an axe, Gayathri dropped unconscious, and Gautham was hit hard on the head with the blunt end of the axe. The way Gautham remembers it is - the three men had molested and murdered Gayathri and then had left Gautham for dead after striking him on the head. Gautham, in his hypnotic state, swears furiously to Rajashekar that he will avenge Gayathri's murder by capturing and killing the three men responsible. As it is revealed later in the film, Gayathri had not died but had merely passed out.