One day, during Sri Rama Navami festival, Shivaiah marries Lalitha, shocking all the villagers. Shivaiah often encounters Lalitha and gets appalled by her condition. She and her son often get abused by her sister-in-law ( Y. Vijaya), but Lalitha, having nowhere to go, bears it all. In that village, Lalitha ( Raadhika), a young widow with a five-year-old son, lives along with her brother Chalapati's ( Sarath Babu) family. He lives along with his grandmother ( Nirmalamma) in a village. Shivaiah ( Kamal Haasan) is an innocent orphan with a brain injury resulting in low intellectual function. The film was later dubbed into Tamil as Sippikkul Muthu, released on October 2, 1986.Upon its success, the film was later remade in Hindi as Eeshwar and in Kannada as Swathi Muthu. The film was selected by India as its entry for the Best Foreign Language Film for the Academy Awards in 1986, but was not nominated. The film received the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Telugu, three Nandi Awards and the Filmfare Award for Best Director – Telugu.
The film was screened at the Moscow Film Festival, the Asian and African film festival in Tashkent, the 11th International Film Festival of India in the inaugural mainstream section. Swathi Muthyam depicts the plight of a young widow who is rescued by an autistic man. The soundtrack and background score were composed by Ilaiyaraaja. The film stars Kamal Haasan and Raadhika, while Gollapudi Maruti Rao, J. V. Somayajulu, Nirmalamma, Sarath Babu, and Y. Vijaya play supporting roles. White pearl) is a 1986 Indian Telugu-language drama film written and directed by K. Viswanath and produced by Edida Nageswara Rao.