This evocative romantic drama follows Madan (Kamal Haasan), a talented dancer, whose rakish good looks make him the dream of every woman. Jealous and resentful of his fame and popularity, Kalpana, a beautiful young woman, cruelly criticises his performance. With his ego wounded by her criticism he challenges that he would make her long for him and his love, but he falls in love with her. He tries to win her love in several ways but eventually fails.
One night he gets into her house wearing a mask which makes Kalpana assume that he is a thief. She screams to alert everyone in her home; the police are summoned, Madan is trapped and handed over to the police. Madan, who is the son of wealthy pickle businessman Ooruga Ulaganathan (V. K. Ramaswamy), is rescued by his father from police custody and finds the reason for incident to be his love for Kalpana. Kalpana's father, who is a psychiatrist, finds that Madan is the son of his old friend Ulaganathan. Madan and Kalpana's marriage is approved and fixed with their blessing.
Kalpana who is an aspiring Bharatha Natyam dancer performs on her first stage. Madan who watches her performance is disturbed by some illusion of a woman performing Bharathanatyam. He could not resist the disturbance and leaves the place. Kalpana's father considers it as a normal disturbance and asks him to go for a vacation to some place.
While seeking the perfect holiday location, he sees some visuals of Darjeeling and understands that some places seem very familiar to him, even though he has never visited the place before in his lifetime. He opts to go there and leaves with his friend and fiancee Kalpana. In Darjeeling, he feels everything is familiar to him. At a point he stops in front of a monument, where he gets visions/hallucinations of some Karate competition and a man participating in it. He feels as if he was that man who participated in the competition and bagged the trophy.
Madan screams "Upendra could not be defeated" several times which alarms his friend and Kalpana. Kalpana narrates the incident to her dad. Kalpana's dad advises her to take care of him and make him sleep when he loses awareness of his surroundings.
One day Madan looks at a passerby woman on the road and feels that she knows her. The woman resembles the woman who was present in his hallucination and he feels that she must be Devi (Sripriya). He enquires her if she is Devi but the woman says that she is not. The lady runs away to escape from Madan but he finds her.
The woman is actually Devi, but he is unable to understand why he feels such a strong connection with her. He's frightened by the strong attraction he feels for her, the intense love that has erupted without rhyme or reason. On seeing Upendra's (Kamal Haasan) photo at her house remembers some incidents.
Upendra, a businessman of Nepali origin and son of a Tamil woman (Pandari Bai) meets Devi on his birthday during a dance performance as a part of celebration. Upendra is attracted by Devi's beauty and sweet nature and ends up proposing to her on an impulse. However, there is an objection to their marriage from her selfish uncle Rajadurai (Satyaraj) at beginning, but later he agrees, on the condition that Devi must inherit half of Upendra's inheritance, in his will.
Upendra marries Devi happily. Upendra is loving and affectionate to his wife. On the next day, Upendra sets out for the estate accompanied by Rajadurai, but returns dead. Madan explains to Devi that Upendra has not died by any accident but was actually killed by Rajadurai who pushed him from the Cable car. Devi is shocked by the news. But neither she and nor Madan understand how he knows
On their next meeting, Madan sees her going to a temple and he follows her. At the temple, Devi meets with her mother-in-law and reveals the truth about Upendra's murder to her. Madan meets the lady and feels a strong motherly love for her. Upendra's mother considers that her son is back again and feels happy. He hears that Rajadurai threatened the mother and attempted to kill her. He also entrapped Devi on a trumped up murder charge.
Madan promises to get back all the property they have lost. In the struggle, Rajadurai kills Upendra's mother. Madan could not bear the death and he performs all the final rituals as her son. Madan understands all the hallucinations and feelings are because he is the reincarnation of Upendra. Rajadurai falls from the cable car and dies.
With all the legal constraints settled down, Devi gets back all the lost property of her husband. Devi who understands that Madan is her reincarnated husband, feels for a moment but unites Kalpana with Madan.
