Radha Kishan, Shabana Azmi is the beloved daughter of a billionaire in Mumbai and falls in love with Avtaar Kishan, Rajesh Khanna, a Punjabi Hindu refugee who works as a mechanic. When her father disapproves, the couple defies convention and elopes, beginning a life built on grit, hope, and mutual loyalty. The early years are filled with hardship, but Radha and Avtaar persevere, and over time they carve out a modest home and a growing fortune. They raise two sons, Chandar and Ramesh, who themselves start families—Chandar weds Renu and Ramesh weds Sudha—while Avtaar takes a loyal servant named Sewak under his wing, a child he found as an orphan in Mumbai.
Chandar’s decision to marry the daughter of Seth Laxmi Narayan changes the family dynamics, as Chandar becomes a gharjamai in a way that goes against Avtaar’s wishes. Meanwhile, Ramesh registers the family house in his wife’s name, defying his father’s preference. The mounting tensions push Avtaar to leave home, taking Radha and Sewak with him. The couple faces new financial struggles as Avtaar starts a garage with the help of a moneylender. Aging and with his right hand crippled from an accident, he battles doubts and setbacks, yet Sewak stands by him—even anonymously donating blood to help raise funds. The truth about Sewak’s sacrifice is revealed by Avtaar’s former boss, Bawaji, who discloses that Sewak acted out of genuine loyalty. Moved, Radha and Avtaar come to see Sewak as a true son and a source of unwavering support.
Amid these personal trials, Avtaar’s closest friend Rashid Ahmed, a kindly elderly Muslim car mechanic, endures mistreatment at the hands of his cruel daughter-in-law, Zubaida, who keeps him poorly fed and degraded. Rashid’s son Anwar, who has just returned from Dubai, faces the news of his father’s plight with a mix of guilt and distance. When Rashid falls gravely ill, Anwar initially turns him away, saying he cannot afford treatment, and Avtaar witnesses this sorrowful fracture of family ties. In response, Avtaar creates Apna Ghar, an old-age home to shelter those abandoned or abused by their own families, a humane gesture born of his growing sense of responsibility toward the elderly and vulnerable.
Back at home, Chandar and Ramesh continue to enjoy relative comfort, while Avtaar’s luck takes a dramatic turn when a carburetor he helps develop earns a patent. This breakthrough propels him into a new era of manufacturing, and he builds an industrial empire with Radha and Sewak at the core of its leadership. Yet success brings a moral cost: Avtaar uses aggressive business tactics to crush Laxmi Narayan’s empire, undercutting him with lower prices and offering double wages to workers who switch loyalties, effectively ruining the rival. A bank fraud at Ramesh’s hands leads to his arrest, and Sudha seeks Avtaar’s help, but he rebukes her, straining family bonds and testing Radha’s patience.
Radha’s concerns grow as Bawaji, ever the honest voice from the past, intervenes and helps Ramesh by posting bail, on the condition that he keeps silent about the truth. The strain continues when Laxmi Narayan expels Chandar from the home, and Chandar, Ramesh, and Sudha seek Radha’s aid, only to be met with Avtaar’s stern opposition. The next day Avtaar vanishes from the office to avoid facing Radha, and she pleads with him over the phone, but he remains distant. When Bawaji finally confesses the full truth to Radha, she begins to understand the painful consequences of her earlier judgments. The situation deepens as Anwar and Zubaida push Rashid for all the provident funds he has saved, but Rashid rebuffs their demands and refuses to surrender what is due him.
In the wake of these revelations, Radha reevaluates her cruelty and misjudgments, realizing the harm she caused to Avtaar. She attempts to reach him, but is told by Sewak that Avtaar has suffered a massive heart attack after a harsh confrontation with Radha. Avtaar’s will reveals his precise and painful decisions: he leaves only two lakhs to each of his sons—compensation for their earlier betrayal and a reflection of the harsh lessons he learned—and he declares Sewak his one true son, entrusting him with the final rites and cremation. The story neatly circles back to the opening moment, closing the film with Radha and Sewak carrying forward Avtaar’s memory and the enduring message of loyalty, sacrifice, and forgiveness.
