Bala Kamath is a burnt-out alcoholic investigative journalist on the verge of losing his job with the media house for which he works. As a last chance to save his career, he is sent on an assignment to a small town near Mangalore, to investigate a godman, one Swami Sarvananda, who, it is alleged, had stolen money, sheltered criminals and tried to rape a devotee. He visits the godman’s ashram the next day and finds a bond building between the Swami and himself. By the time the Swami is arrested on charge of attempted rape, Bala is sure that there’s more to the case than meets the eye, a feeling confirmed by the emergence of a dubious politician and his strongman, the murder of the Swami’s second-in-command and by a series of jailhouse chats with the Swami. When the Swami refuses to meet him any more, Bala returns to Bangalore to face his own failing marriage, resurrect his relationship with his teenaged daughter and retrieve his career. Meanwhile, the Swami is released on bail and disappears.
In tracing the Swami’s story and discovering the murderer, Bala discovers more about himself than he had bargained for…