Enredo

Jagirdar Bishamber Nath a wealthy man disowns his son, police inspector Amar Nath for marrying against his wishes. In the course of his duties Amar sends a notorious criminal Pinto to jail. In due course, Pinto escapes from prison and begins a vendetta which results in several deaths, children being separated from parents and the loyalty of a family driver which saves Jyoti. As the children grow up there is a peek behind the scenes of movieland in Bombay, abductions, being loved, unrequited love, broken childhood engagement, success in stardom, suicide and failure. Does Amar's daughter Jyoti find her true love? Is wealthy Bishamber Nath destined to a lonely old age?—MG Gopalan

Inspector Amar Nath (Vinod Mehra) apprehends and arrests notorious gangster who goes by different alias (Deshbandhu Jagannath, Pinto, Abdul Karim (Kader Khan)), and gets him sentenced to prison for several years.

Pinto's goons kill the informer Mr. Sharma (A. K. Hangal), whose intel led to Pinto's arrest. Mr Sharma was survived by his daughter Sheela. Before dying, Sharma asks Amar to marry Sheela as after her, Sheela has nobody to take care of her. Amar agrees to marry Sheela.

Amar, who comes from a wealthy family, defies his father, Jagirdar Bishambhar Nath (Om Prakash), and marries a poor but pretty woman, Sheela Sharma (Neeta Mehta), and is asked to leave the family home. Amar and Sheela settle elsewhere and soon are the proud parents of a daughter, Jyoti (Anita Raj).

They meet with the parents of young Deepak Kumar (Dharmendra) and arrange a child-marriage of their daughter Jyoti with Deepak. Abdul is the driver of Deepak's parents. Abdul had been sent by Amar and Sheela to bring Bishambhar to the engagement ceremony. Bishambhar refuses to come, and Abdul warns him that one day Bishambhar will live alone in his large mansion with no family and will curse himself for sending his son and his wife away. Bishambhar refuses to relent.

Amar and Sheela decide to visit Bishambhar and introduce him to Jyoti. Then Pinto (Kader Khan) escapes from prison, hunts down Amar and Sheela and kills them when they were on their way to meet Bishambhar.

The car was being driven by Abdul (Pran), who saves their daughter's life, and takes her to Bishambhar, who accepts her with tears in his eyes. Pinto kills Abdul's family trying to find Jyoti. When Abdul finds out, he is livid and for revenge he enters Pinto's mansion. Abdul abducts Pinto's daughter (he wanted to kill her, but he sees his own daughter's face in her and decides to abduct her instead).

Abdul is pursued by Pinto's goons as he tries to hide in a temple. He hands over the girl to a woman (Sushma Seth) and promises to return once he has got rid of the goons. The girl remains with the woman who takes her home. Abdul returns after outsmarting the goons, but the woman was already gone.

Years later, Deepak and Jyoti have both grown up. Abdul is now a taxi driver in Mumbai. Both Pinto and Abdul are searching for Pinto's daughter.

While Jyoti still lives with her wealthy grandfather. One day Abdul runs into Bishambhar and Jyoti at a cinema theater, but Bishambhar does not recognize Abdul.

Deepak's dad has passed away, leaving his widow destitute. Abdul is the one who is supporting Deepak and his mother with his meager earnings. Abdul informs Deepak and his mother about running into Jyoti and this means that the marriage promise that was made all those years ago between Deepak and Jyoti can now be fulfilled.

When Deepak's mother goes to confirm Deepak's marriage to Jyoti, Jyoti shuns and humiliates her, even though Bishambhar agrees to their marriage. This enrages Deepak and he vows to make Jyoti apologize to his mother, as well as confirm their marriage.

Deepak heads to Mumbai & gets odd jobs in the film city. Sandhya (Reena Roy) is the stolen daughter of Pinto is now a robber in Mumbai, taking wealthy film city types for a ride & then robbing them. She gets arrested when her next victim turns out to be an undercover police officer. Sandhya is rescued by Prabhat Kumar (Raj Babbar), one of her victims who was still around when she and her gang went for their next victim.

Prabhat bails her out & gets her an acting job in film city. Prabhat turns out to be a big movie producer and director. Now Sandhya is a star & Prabhat loves her. But as Sandhya gets more and more popular, she gets to work with bigger stars on bigger projects and this makes Prabhat insecure. Prabhat speaks to Sandhya's mother, who defends her saying that Sandhya is only trying to bring realism into her performances. Sandhya's mother believes that she has not professionally outgrown Prabhat and he is only holding her back.

Deepak barges into a meeting where a director was explaining the next movie to Sandhya. Deepak demonstrates the range of his acting skills on the spot, which impresses Sandhya. Sandhya gives Deepak his break & he starts to love her. The director asks Deepak to stay with his assistant.

Meanwhile Bishambhar is angry with Jyoti for refusing the marriage with Deepak, based on their parents promise to each other, years ago. To placate Bishambhar, Jyoti tells him that she is already married & now is looking for a husband for hire. Now, Bishambhar does not want to repeat the same mistake he made all those years ago with his son. He accepts Jyoti's marriage and wants to meet the husband. Jyoti asks in the film city to hire an actor to pose as her husband. The director's assistant calls Jyoti for a meeting and invites her home. He starts to sexually assault Jyoti when Deepak intervenes and saves Jyoti. Jyoti meets Deepak, who identifies her & agrees to go with her as her fake husband. Deepak's plan is to make her start loving him.

Jyoti loves Raman (Rajeev Anand), who is Pinto's son. Jyoti starts to get jealous of Sandhya's love for Deepak. Pinto finds Abdul, who has lost his memory in an accident, & wants to know the whereabouts of his daughter. Deepak sort of uses Sandhya to lure Jyoti. Jyoti falls for it & is in love with Deepak. When Raman finds out, he tells Bishambhar the truth that Jyoti is not married to Deepak, and it was a sham marriage to keep Bishambhar satisfied.

Via Abdul, Pinto reaches Sandhya's mother who tells Pinto about the girl Abdul gave her all those years ago. Pinto realizes that Sandhya is his daughter. Before Pinto can reach her, Sandhya has committed suicide in the memory of Deepak.

Bishambhar agrees to marry Jyoti to Raman. But in marriage Abdul's memory comes back & he identifies Pinto as the killer of Jyoti's parents, in front of Deepak & Prabhat. A big melee ensues & Prabhat dies along with Raman & Pinto.