Sita Sinha has brought up her son, Bihari and his friend, Amar as her own. The three are very close to each other. When they grow up they maintain their friendship and love for each other. Amar marries wealthy Jaya, and Bihari marries a labourer. Amar's dad, Mr. Saxena does not like Bihari, and schemes to separate them. He succeeds, and Bihari is humiliated. Bihari blames Amar, and swears to bring about his downfall at all costs.
After businessman Ram Pratap Singh (Raj Babbar) gives police information pertaining to a journalist's murder, gangster Jagmohan (Danny Denzongpa) goes to prison for the crime. Soon, Singh's life turns upside down when Jagmohan's cohorts begin peppering him with threats. Helped by Inspector Sharma (Suresh Oberoi), he goes into the witness protection program with his wife and child, but the cover may not be enough to keep them safe.
In a small village in Darjeeling, Sahuji the merchant has weaved a web of corruption in every layers of the social fabric. And he is also involved in rampant smuggling of goods across the border, and everyone from the local jeweler to the local police inspector are part of his intricate web. While the father has created a position of influence by spreading corruption, his son Kaaliram has ushered in a reign of terror. Desperate villagers make a plea to the owner of the tea garden, who calls (presumably) the higher ups in police force and they promise to send someone.
Maanav is an orphan who was brought up by a Catholic Priest. After completing his M.A. he returns home and finds out that his mentor is dead. He re-locates to Bombay and a man named Gopichand Sharma attempts to steal his luggage. The men become friends - Gopichand eventually changes his lifestyle, decides to be honest. Maanav gets him a job with Hercules Milk Foods. Maanav meets with and falls in love with the daughter of the owner of Hercules Milk Foods, much to the chagrin of her Dad. Then one day Maanav disappears from Gopichand and Kaajal's lives. He re-locates to Simla and it is here that he learns that things have spiraled out of control.
Bombay-based Rajesh lives a fairly wealthy lifestyle with his parents, mom - a housewife and dad - a rather parsimonious businessman, named Amirchand. One day while walking on the beach, he comes across a beautiful blind girl named Shivani. He instantly falls in love with her. She also likes him, but understands that they cannot be married. Regardless of this, Rajesh asks his parents to permit him to marry her, to which his mother agrees, but his father refuses. Then Mr. Rai, Amirchand's friend, intervenes, he offers to pay for getting Shivani's eyes tested, and if she succeeds in getting her sight, then and only then can Amirchand permit his son to marry her.
A village woman abandoned by her husband is forced into prostitution in Kolkata and forms nameless yet strong relations with a wealthy patron as well as an abused boy in the neighbourhood.
Old woman Anandi moves to the city with her relatives and finds out their material side. She develops fondness for two rival street gangs of unemployed youth. These gangs are headed by two former friends turned foes in a time when society, politics and education are all losing their bearings in 1970s India.
Kedarnath is employed with a local clock/watch repair shop, owned by a parsimonious Adarshan Lala. Kedarnath goes out of his way to help a destitute woman, Maya, who husband is missing, with two daughters, Veena and Vidya. Kedarnath rents a room with them, writes letters to her on behalf of her husband, Pannalal, and even arranges the marriage of Veena with the son of Daulatram. When Maya tells him that she has no money to pay for the marriage expenses, he steals cash from his employer, and tells Maya that the money is from Pannalal. And all along telling Maya that he is a close friend of Pannalal, even though he has never met Pannalal, leave alone know him, making one think as to what devious secret Kedarnath is hiding, and what is the reason behind Pannalal's disappearance.
Vandana's husband, Arun, gets killed in an air crash after they secretly get married but no one accepts their marriage. Thereafter, she is forced to put her child up for adoption and later work as his nanny to stay by his side.
To pay for his sister's marriage, a brother enters into a criminal conspiracy to impersonate the nephew of a wealthy male.
Through the microcosmic perspectivising of a group of devoted and uncompromising IPTA workers, Ghatak with his signature style touches on varied issues of partition, idealism, corruption, the interdependence of art and life, the scope of art, and class-struggle.
There are moments in our lives when our whole being is put to the test. Our ideals, our ambitions, are forgotten and we crave for escape. Escape into our world of dreams. And such is Anuradha's (Leela Naidu) story. The daughter of a rich man, she has everything she desired, yet she goes on to marry Dr. Nirmal Chowdhary (Balraj Sahni), an idealistic doctor, who wants to serve the poor in the villages of India. Later when she is shown what she is missing by living with this poor doctor, she has to make the choice. The choice of her life or her love.