Aptharakshaka

The story starts off with an ancient painting of Nagavalli (Vimala Raman) floating away to distant places, where it finally comes into the hands of a village painter. The painter brings it home so as to restore it back to its original look. However, when his wife asks him to sell the painting, he becomes furious, saying that he wouldn't sell it off even at the cost of his life. The next day, the painter is shown to be dead under mysterious circumstances, possibly being a suicide. The painting is then sold off to a dance competition, which was distributed as a prize to Bharata Natyam dancer Saraswathi (Lakshmi Gopalaswamy), her husband and her family. On the Engagement day of Gowri (Sandhya (actress)), one of her friends had fainted by encountering a huge thirty-feet Snake, and the bridegroom had run away from the family house fearing of something. All strange incidents happen as the family called for a snake charmer to the house, but the snake charmer had died when he attempted to make the serpent appear. The members of the family are psychologically affected by the presence of Nagavalli's painting and things have not been going well in the house. So they decide to contact Acharya Ramchandra Shastry (Avinash), an astrologer cum sage. The father of the three daughters tells the Acharya that Saraswathi and her husband met with a fatal accident and died, after the bharathanatyam competition. The Acharya takes the help of Dr Vijay (Vishnuvardhan (actor)), a psychiatrist, to solve the problem. All directions point to the huge portrait of Nagavalli, and is observed that the portrait is the cause for this. Everyone is warned to not go to the outhouse or to the room where Nagavalli's painting is. One night, Dr. Vijay goes to the outhouse as he heard anklet sounds, and he sees another smaller portrait of Nagavalli in the outhouse. It is then revealed that Saraswathi is still alive, but became mad after the truck accident in which her husband died while he was carrying the pa