Gopalakrishna Pillai (Mohanlal) is a money-lender in a village called Elavattom in Pathanamthitta district. People misunderstand him to be money-minded, without having any emotional bond even towards his mother or younger brother Ramakrishna Pillai (Ajmal Ameer).
As the story moves along, we learn more about the hero. He is considered heartless, as he threw out his father (Sai Kumar) when he was a teenager, for his father's wayward lifestyle. His mother (KPAC Lalitha) hates him for doing that and his brother hates him because he does not let his brother pursue his dream of being an actor and never gives him any freedom.
His main antagonists are Siddique and his younger brothers. Kavya Madhavan assumes the role of Jayalakshmi, a bank manager who is seen as a threat to Gopalakrishna's money lending business.
It turns out that Ramakrishna Pillai is in love with a girl (Mallika Kapoor) from Gopalakrishna Pillai's rival family. Though Gopalakrishnan Pillai arranges the marriage forgetting the rivalry, after marriage he asks his brother to repay him the expenses he incurred for the marriage and prompts the newlyweds to sleep separately. With this he becomes the most hated person of his brother and mother. Frustrated, Ramakrishna Pillai leaves the house and joins his in-laws against Gopalakrishna Pillai by saying that his money-lending business is illegal. Still that doesn't work.
Ramakrishna Pillai accuses his brother of processioning the family wealth alone and he gives false information to the Income Tax Department files a suite against him in court. In the climax it is revealed by Gopalakrishna Pillai's advocate (Jagathy Sreekumar) that Gopalakrishna Pillai has kept his hard-earned wealth in the name of his younger brother and he was always hard on him just to make him responsible. It also is revealed that his father was not thrown out, but committed suicide in a distant place due to his debts. The story ends happily as the brothers reunite and everyone apologises to Gopalakrishna Pillai.