In 1974, Annie Grover endures the sting of a past humiliation by his principal, Yamdoot (Y. D. Billimoria), popularly known as Hell's messenger. At the School of Planning and Architecture in New Delhi, Annie repeats his fifth year for the fourth time, spending long hours in the hostel and clinging to daydreams of social uplift. He imagines an unusual project: planting fruit trees on both sides of a railway line where rural India defecates daily, with the trains’ sprinklers watering the saplings as they pass, turning a grim routine into green hope.
Annie keeps two hens in his room and earns a modest income by selling their eggs, until a prank by his friend Mankind and his Ugandan roommate Kasozi roasts the birds. Soon after, his hirsute classmate Arjun and his girlfriend Radha—a non-conformist student who steals cigarettes from Yamdoot and challenges the teachers—present Annie with a rabbit.
Many adventures later, the day to submit the thesis draws near. Urged by his friends, Annie apologises to Yamdoot. A panel of judges calls the students one by one for their final interviews, and tension mounts. Radha goes dressed in a saree but wears a man’s hat to detract from her sober attire. To ensure Annie gets a sympathetic hearing, Radha and Arjun work out a plan. Just as Annie is called in, Yamdoot receives a phone call from his dominating, deep-voiced mother (who, in reality, is Mankind). The ruse works, and the weary panel gives Annie a good grade.
At the party after graduation, Annie arrives with heavy books under his arm, his hair shaved off, and a butterfly painted on his head. He announces his decision to study law and then sue Yamdoot.
An epilogue reveals the fates of the characters: Papey returns to Ludhiana as a building contractor after failing to graduate; Lakes runs an interior design firm in South Delhi; Kasozi becomes vice chairman of the Kampala Urban Development Authority; Mankind is the architect for a departmental store chain in Copenhagen; Arjun becomes the second biggest commercial marigold farmer in India; Radha pivots toward writing but drowns in 1976 before she can complete her first novel; and Annie is appointed assistant professor of design at the National Institute of Architecture in 1977, a year after Yamdoot’s retirement.
