The film begins after Alexander the Great (Sikander in Hindi/Urdu) conquers Persia and the Kabul valley and approaches the Indian border at Jhelum. Sohrab Modi plays the Indian king Puru (Porus to the Greeks). The story goes that when Sikander defeated Porus and imprisoned him, he asked Porus how would he like to be treated. Porus replied the same way a defeated king is treated by the winner (meaning killed).
Modi's first psychodramatic role as a liberal man becoming a tyrannical jailer. He loses his wife to a lover who then goes blind. The jailer locks up his wife, Kanwal, in their own home, forbidding any contact with their child, Bali. Later the jailer himself falls in love with a blind woman.