Doorathu Idi Muzhakkam

A group of students come to a fishing village and see the statue of a young lady holding a shell and a lamp in both her hands. A tourist guide narrates the story as the film goes into a flashback mode.

Perumooppan, the village head, finds a child abandoned in a boat in the sea. He takes the child with him and brings him up. The child grows up into a skilled fisherman (Ponnan). Ponnan falls in love with Chelli, the daughter of a potter from the same village. Maari, Chelli's maternal uncle, who has an eye on her himself, comes to know about the relationship between her and Ponnan. One day when Ponnan and Chelli are together in a temple, a lamp breaks down. When Chelli is asked about her companion in the Panchayat, she fails to reveal Ponnan's name. The entire village questions her chastity and punishes her by making her swim across the sea and bring mud to light the lamp. When she does it successfully, the villagers become happy and get satisfied. This makes Maari even angrier.

On the insistence of Perumooppan, Ponnan along with a group of fishermen go to sea for fishing. During the event, Ponnan is taken away by a shark. The villagers believe that Ponnan is dead. On hearing this, Chelli attempts suicide but is saved by Maari. The villagers advise Chelli's father to get her married to Maari. Despite her reluctance, the marriage happens, and while returning home after it, she sees a dead body of a child being carried away by the villagers. Maari moves out of the house and notices a tantric (Pillikoda) who digs out the buried child in the graveyard and chases him. Meanwhile, Maari is appointed as one of the prominent members of the village Panchayat.

Things begin to change as Chelli and Maari start living a happy life. By this time, the long-lost Ponnan returns to the village and finds both of them together. A dejected Ponnan leaves the place without informing her. Further, when he comes to know about their marriage, he decides to keep himself away from Chelli to avoid further complications. He goes to Perumooppan's house and leaves a shell that he brought from the deep sea. When Perumooppan sees this, he gets to know that Ponnan is still alive. In the meanwhile, Chelli delivers a baby boy. Since the baby looks dark and bears a close resemblance to Ponnan, the villagers label the child as an illegitimate one. Maari too starts believing that the child was not paid to him. A dejected Maari goes to a nearby temple during which he comes across Pillikoda who asks him to bring a first male child of any family and the shell which is kept in the Pampadevi temple for exchange of some gold coins. Maari accepts the deal and takes the child and the surface and sets out to meet Pillikoda.

Meanwhile, Chelli notices her child is missing and runs to the Pampadevi temple and starts praying to the god to save her child. She then goes to Perumooppan's house to seek his help, where she finds the shell which was brought by Ponnan. Perumooppan advises her to take the surface and keep it inside the temple. He also tells Ponnan to save Chelli's child. When he is about to hand over the child to Pillikoda, Maari reforms and starts fighting with him. In the event, he gets killed by Pillikoda. During this time, Ponnan arrives at the place and fights with Pillikoda and almost kills him. On the other hand, Chelli stands on the seashore and starts praying the god with the shell in one hand and a lamp in another hand. When Ponnan returns to the shore with her child and Maari's corpse, Pillikoda throws a sickle and kills Ponnan. The boat arrives at the beach with the child along with the bodies of both Ponnan and Maari. Pillikoda gets destroyed by a fire. Chelli becomes infuriated and asks the sea deity about the killings of her husband and Ponnan. She continues to stay on the shore. Her father erects a statue of her holding the lamp shell on both her hands and displays at the coast.

• Poornima Devi as Chelli
• Vijayakanth as Ponnan
• Peeli Sivam as Maari
• A. K. Veerasamy as Perumooppan
• A. Jagadeesan as Pillikoda
• Suruli Rajan as Neelakandam
• Karuppu Subbiah

The film was produced by the director Vijayan himself. The film score was provided by Salil Chowdhury while cinematography was handled by N. Balakrishnan.[2] A few scenes were shot in Kerala. Although censored in December 1979, the film had a theatrical release only after a year.[3]

The film received positive response from the critics who appreciated the film for its realistic portrayal of a love story set in the backdrop of a fishing community.[2] It is widely regarded as one of the new wave films that came out in the early 1980s in Tamil cinema.[4] actor suruli Rajan who acted in this movie unexpectedly died on the film's release day..

It was one of the 21 films to be screened at the "Indian Panorama" section of the International Film Festival of India in 1981; apart from Nizhalgal, it was the only other Tamil film to be screened at the festival that year.[5]

All lyrics were written by Ku. Ma. Balasubramaniam and the music was composed by Salil Chowdhury

• Dhananjayan, G. (2014). Pride of Tamil Cinema: 1931 to 2013. Chennai: Blue Ocean Publishers. ISBN 978-93-84301-05-7.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)