Amma Smita Patil and her son Ranjit Chowdhry Benwa become Bombay’s slum-dwellers after fleeing their village when Amma’s husband kills a moneylender who tried to rape her, and the husband is shot later while attempting to steal tin to build a hut. In the vast, crowded metropolis, life is precarious and options are few, and Amma sustains herself with the company of lovers who help support them.
In this rough urban world, Amma has a steady lover who provides for them, but he is a truck driver who travels away for long stretches. To fill the gaps, Amma takes on another partner—a vain pimp and petty crook named Lukka, a man who quickly becomes Benwa’s idol. Lukka is on parole and must present himself to the police every day, adding a constant tension to their fragile arrangement.
Benwa grows up under this shadowy influence and eventually marries a young woman named Amli. Meanwhile Amma’s life thickens with further complications: she becomes pregnant, though the paternity remains unclear in the eyes of the family. To settle the question, Amma makes it clear to Kulbhushan Kharbanda as Anna that the child is his, believing that he is the one capable and responsible enough to care for her and the coming baby.
Lukka reappears later, scarred by syphilis and drugs, a changed man who still lives on the edge of crime. He tries to steer Benwa away from a life of wrongdoing, but his advice largely falls on deaf ears. The tension crescendos when Lukka is assaulted by police at his illicit liquor den, signaling a turning point in the story.
The climax accelerates as Lukka assaults a chemist who refuses to dispense medicines without payment. He grabs some essential drugs and flees, with the police in pursuit. The chase leads him to Amma’s hut, where the authorities close in and arrest both Lukka and Benwa, brutalizing them in the process. Amma suffers a miscarriage amid the commotion, a bitter personal blow in the middle of upheaval.
In the aftermath, a bulldozer rolls through the slum, flattening the makeshift homes and forcing a new kind of exodus. The final moments show Benwa and Amli moving on to a new slum, with a fresh shanty hut to continue the Chakra—a life cycle of struggle, resilience, and the search for a foothold in a city that never stops moving.
