Jayan

Balan (Prem Nazir), an orphan brought up by Daniel (Balan K. Nair), is a hardworking Railway employee & gets promoted to the post of an engine driver, along with his best friend Raghavan (Jayan). He happened to rescue Savithri (Jayabharati) from some thugs & gives her shelter in his house. Daniel, who wanted Balan to marry his daughter Daisy, takes offense to this, & kicks Balan out of his house. Savithri turns out to be Raghavan's estranged wife & this causes friction between Balan & Raghavan.

Prabhakaran (Madhu), a hardworking fisherman, gets lost at sea, after which his wife Lakshmi (K.R. Vijaya) is forced to leave town with their three young children - Babu, Appu & Kunjumon. During the train journey, Lakshmi loses Babu & Appu too, who in turn again separates from each other. Babu grows up as Rajan (Jayan), a jewel thief, Appu grows up as Kumar (M.G. Soman), a rich businessman's protégé, & Kunjumon grows up as Ravi (Sukumaran), with his mother. Fate unites them again in life.

Vishwanathan (M.G. Soman), a painter, comes to a village in Kuttanad, his birth place, & rents the house he grew up in, with the intention of seeking revenge on Paili (Madhu), the duck farmer, who had hacked his parents to death. After an initial spat with Paili, Vishwanathan befriends him & gains entry into his home. When Vishwanathan learns that the only person whom Paili cared about in this world is his daughter Ammini (Jayabharati), Vishwanathan decides to seduce & impregnate Ammini.

Mamangalam Ponni (Sheela), the coveted girl of the land, has to wed a lowly woodcutter (Prem Nazir) who saved her life, to abide by the law that any virgin accepting clothing from a man, has to be his wife. Ponni makes a warrior out of the woodcutter in 101 days & names him Durgadasan, but now, Durgadasan can only see her as his guru. Meanwhile, her jilted suers - Thacholi Chandu (Ummer), Elavannoor Idumban (Jayan), Kaippali Paachan (Janardanan) & others were planning to get Ponni by any means.

Greedy nurse Sathi (Padmapriya) spurns her bourgeoisie neighbor Venu's (M.G. Soman) advances & goes for Babu (Ravi Kumar), mistaking him to be rich. When it turned out that Babu was broke, she seethes, but later they make up. Later when Sathi's terminally ill patient Sindhu (Sumithra), daughter of millionaire C.P. Menon, eyes Babu, Sathi forces Babu to marry Sindhu with the thought that she can marry Babu after Sindhu's death. However, after the marriage, Sindhu recovers, foiling Sathi's plans.

Raju (Kamal Hassan), son of rich businessman Ambadi Rajasekharan Thampi (Thikkurisi Sukumaran Nair) & a Hindu, falls in love with & marries poor Christian working girl Elsa (Zarina Wahab), against both families' opposition. Elsa supports Raju, who was still a college student, through college till he gets his IAS & becomes a sub-collector, after which they had plans to start a family. However, their dreams are shattered when Elsa gets diagnosed with terminal leukemia.

Two brothers Suresh & Sumesh & their younger sister Sumam, gets separated as children after their dad, rich businessman Sundaresan (Thikkurisi), is murdered by their uncles Kesavan (G.K. Pillai) & Vasu (N. Govindankutty) & their insane mother Soudamini (Santhakumari) is abandoned at an asylum by their aunt Kotha (Sukumari). As adults, fate brings them together & they seek revenge against Kesavan, Kotha & Kesavan's equally evil son Dr. Sekhar (Mohanlal).

Velu (Jayan), a rowdy who assaulted people for money, & Malathi (Shubha), a prostitute, form an odd bond of friendship which later turns into love. They decide to quit their bad ways & turn over a new leaf, but, Velu's stepbrother Gopi (Sukumaran), a serial womanizer & who had no love for Velu, doesn't let them be. Gopi, who happened to be an old customer of Malathi, takes a fancy to her again, & demands she sleep with him. When she rejects him, Gopi exacts revenge by raping a pregnant Malathi.

Wrongly accused of theft & jailed, upon release, Ramachandran (Jayan) kills the man responsible for it, abducts his daughter Sarala (Seema) & leaves her in a brothel, while Sarala's brother Balakrishnan (Sukumaran) roams around looking for Ramachandran. Not knowing each other's true identities, Ramachandran & Balakrishnan, who went around with false names, become thick pals. Thampi (K.P. Ummer), a rich womanizer, tries to break up their friendship by letting them know the truth about each other.

Sexually frustrated living with a sick but wealthy husband (Ravi Menon), Soudamini (Sheela) falls for the macho horseman Chandrasekaran (Jayan) in a weak moment resulting in her husband dying without care. Soudamini marries Chandrasekaran but her daughter Baby grows up to hate her & turns into a rebel. Siddayyan (Nellikode Bhaskaran), the ex-caretaker of the family, takes pity on Soudamini & sends his son Prabhakaran (Sathar) to save the family, which doesn't bode well with Chandrasekaran.

Mary Hans (Seema) falls in love with a sailor Stanley Green (Mohan Sharma) & they plan to marry, but after learning that it was Stanley's sister Evelyn (Sreeletha Namboothiri), who drove her daddy to commit suicide & that Stanley was already a father to a girl, Mary drifts away from Stanley. Mary is raped by a stranger (Jayan), but she feels attached to him, even after learning that he was a brute. Pregnant with his child, Mary confesses her love for him, but is snubbed by the stranger.