The story opens with Veera Reddy (Ahuti Prasad) returning from USA after a long gap along with his wife and 8 year-old kid Aadi Kesava Reddy. Veera Reddy owns a land of 4,000 acres and he trusts the responsibility of managing it to Siva Reddy (Rajan P Dev) before going to US. Now back in India, Veera Reddy realizes that Siva Reddy is misusing his power and wants to donate all his land to the 2000 families staying in that village. When Siva Reddy comes to know about this he kills the husabnd and wfe. Veeranna (Chalapati Rao), a trusted lieutenant of Veera Reddy, takes the kid Aadi Kesava Reddy and escapes to the city (Hyderabad). And the kid grows up and falls in love with Nandini (Keerthi Chawla), daughter of Siva Reddy. Rest of the story is how Aadi fullfils his father's ambition and wins Nandini's hand.
V.V. Vinayak first approached NTR with a love story but the actor asked him for a mass masala subject. Vinayak has then prepared the story line of Aadi in just 2 days and got it Okayed by NTR.
The movie was also remade in Tamil as Jai with Prashanth and as Mazduron Ka Daata in Hindi.