Arputhamma is an elderly woman who was about eighty years of age. She was an expert in treating venomous wounds, and that’s how she got the name Arputhammma. Everyone’s been calling her this name for so long that she even forgot her actual name.

There weren’t any humans at all in this forest when Arputhammma and her husband first came to live here. She bore and gave birth to four children, but all four died within their childhoods itself. And in time, her husband too passed away and left Arputhamma alone in her little hut in the forest.

But she survived the forest and made her living through making bows, arrows and other weapons for tribes deep in the forest, and by treating people who come from the villages outside for treating poison. The only person who could be considered as someone close to her was a distant rela­ tive named Marimuthu who used to come visit her at times from her own village.

One day, Marimuthu and his newlywed wife Sita came to Arputhamma look­ ing for shelter. Arputhamma was so happy to welcome them. But a night later, Marimuthu left Sita in her care and went away promising Arputhamma that he would be back within a couple of days. He never returned after that, but Arputhamma now considered Sita as her own daughter even if she didn’t give birth to her.

It is around recently that Suruli, a middle aged Tamil person comes to Arputhamma for treatment from some poisoning. Even after he got cured, he frequently used to come back to visit Arputhamma, and she too liked Suruli’s presence. ‘He is a good person, loving and loyal’ Arputhamma used to tell Sita. She even dreamed of Sita and Suruli getting together before her death. But Arputhamma who could sense the character and amount of poison from any venomous snake within a touch, could not realize the dark poison inside Suruli’s mind.

But Arputhamma was a challenge in Suruli’s plan. Finally, by the hands of a man whose life she saved, a man she loved as her own son, she was pushed down the valley of death. And in her death, her heart was filled with venge­ ance as savage as of a vicious animal.