On her ninth birthday Amudha (P.S. Keerthana), after learning that she was adopted, resolves to find her birth mother. Her parents Thiruchelvan (Madhavan) and Indra (Simran) insist on accompanying her, and so together they leave the comfort of their home in India to venture into the jungles of Sri Lanka, where they witness the violence and brutality of civil war. Eventually they discover Shyama (Nandita Das), who explains that she gave up her daughter to fight for the separatist cause.