The plot is set in a remote fictional village of Ramapuram in Andhra and it centres around three families...of Krishnaiah, a poor farmer with a cultured son Pratap and a daughter, of Veera Bhadraiah, the powerful village head and landlord with a son of loose character Rajendra and daughter, and of Govindaiah, the village postmaster with a daughter. Veera Bhadraiah goes on expanding his empire on three fronts by annexing adjoining lands of poor farmers, by doing stealthy business by illegally transporting logs of red sanders and sandal wood from the nearby forest and by becoming politically strong as the village head or Sarpanch and later as an M.L.A. His son Rajendra takes to bad ways, seeks pleasure in liquor and sex causing much embarrassment, nuisance and insecurity to good- looking young girls of the working class.