When a remote village, Athipatti in Madurai district faces severe water shortages, the inhabitants adopt all possible means to bring their problem to the attention of the authorities. But the process soon reveals the apathetic attitude of politicians, bureaucrats and the press alike. A convict Vellaiswamy wanted for the murder of a local landlord turns the villagers' plight to his advantage and begins a co-operative scheme to transport water in a cart from a spring ten miles away with help of Vathiyar. The local politicians try to make people of village to vote for them in election. But all people of the village boycott the elections. The local politician beats the convict and breaks the vehicle used for transporting water. The villagers decide to build canal by themselves. But Alagiri, husband of Sevanthi, comes to the village and finds the convict hidden in the village.

The convict promises to Alagiri that he will surrender after the canal is finished. But fate intervenes in the form of a Public Works Department Officer, who stops villagers from finishing the canal work. The villagers are shot by police. The convict dies due to thirst for water. A villager joins the naxalites. Vathiyar is arrested for aiding the convict. The villagers leave the town. But Sevanthi watches the sky every evening in hope of rain. These incidents are narrated by a Press reporter who had come to the village. The final scene mocks bureaucracy by showing pictures of government sponsored meetings for water resource improvement. It shows all the political parties' flags in the farmland. It shows that bureaucracy and politics fail the common man's aspirations.