The story is set in a street in a small village called Durvasapura in the
Western Ghats of
Karnataka. A majority of the people who live in the street belong to the community of
Madhwas (a
Brahmin community). The people who stay here have a traditional mindset and strictly follow the rules defined by their religion. Two of the main characters in the story are Praneshacharya (Girish Karnad) and Narayanappa. Praneshacharya is a devout
Brahmin who has completed his
Vedic education at
Varanasi and has returned to Duravasapura and is considered as the leader of the
Brahmin community of his village and the surrounding ones. His main goal is to attain liberation (
moksha) and he is willing to go to any length to achieve it. To remain focused on his goal and as an act of self-sacrifice, he marries an invalid woman, and hence remains
celibate. The other main character, Narayanappa is a Brahmin by birth, but one who has rejected the set rules of
Brahminism, by eating meat and by keeping the company of a prostitute named Chandri. Narayanappa and his friends catch the sacred fish in the temple tank and cook and eat them, causing the Brahmins in the village to rise up against him. They approach Praneshacharya to throw him out of the village. Praneshacharya decides against taking this extreme step as he believes that Narayanappa can be convinced to renounce his immoral acts. Narayanappa visits
Shimoga, and he returns to Duravasapura with a high fever and dies. The Brahmins are caught in a dilemma, because according to Brahmin principles, a person who dies should be cremated as early as possible. None of the Brahmins wants to cremate Narayanappa's body, as they feel that by doing so they will become polluted, as he was against the Brahmin principles during his life. However, the Brahmin principles also stipulate that a non-Brahmin cannot cremate the body of a Brahmin. Praneshacharya, being the leader, is responsible for finding the solution to this difficult problem. He reads the holy books, but they do not provide any solution. He then goes to a temple to pray to God and spends a whole day there. Disappointed at not being able to solve the problem, he trudges back home. On his way, he encounters Chandri. He is mesmerised by her beauty and when he wakes up in the middle of the night, he finds himself lying on Chandri's lap. Chandri rushes home, finds that Narayanappa's body has started to rot, gets it cremated in secrecy, and leaves Durvasapura. Praneshacharya is now caught in another dilemma, as to whether he will reveal his immoral act to the people of the village or keep quiet about it. Feeling guilty, he leaves the village, but the guilt never leaves him. Finally deciding to own up to his act, he returns to the village and the story ends there. It's left to the imagination of the viewer on whether Praneshacharya owns up or not. ==Cast==