The film opens with the sun rising from the mountains, and depicting the beauty of a hamlet's brownish-green landscape and fresh skies as a man sings in the background.

A young boy, Chindan, brushes his teeth, gets ready, and leaves for school as his mother peels vegetables.

Chindan and his friends sing a song about Kummatty's descent as they prance through the grass, the fields, and around the huge trees.

An early dawn breaks, and a man enters the village with a cloth-sack on his shoulder, and bohemian animal masks hung on a rod under his arms.

During the stark night, as children study under oil lamps and candles in their own homes, the man's songs flutter through the air, catching the attention of every child.

In the morning, Chindan and his friends gather by the temple to see the man take a bath in the ancient pool, while the old woman peeks from behind the wall.

While returning from school, Chindan sees that the man has left his masks under the tree, and he touches them and inspects them before leaving for the market.

But a couple days later, they secretly watch Kummatty getting his beard shaven by the bushes, and the friends refute Chindan's theory of the man/Kummatty having supernatural powers.

One of Chindan's friends takes part in a cultural festival where he dresses up as a deity and walks through the village with folks crowding around.

Finally, one day, Kummatty gathers his things, his rod of masks and sets out to another place again, but Chindan and his friends run up to him and hug him, asking him to stay.

The girl's father brings a doctor who finds nothing wrong, but says the dog can only be healthy in open nature.

His mother and father decide to pray every deity and perform every ritual to turn Chindan back to human, but to no avail.

At the end, Chindan goes home, unlatches the bird cage, and frees his parrot by throwing him up into the Malabar sky.

The film ends with a montage of numerous birds flying through the limitless sky - some go west, some go south, some in flock, some independently, but all go with utter, pure freedom.

[4] Scorsese shared images from the restored film to his Instagram account and said in an interview: "Aravindan was a visionary director and Kummatty is considered among his greatest work.