Rukhmani Bai is known to run a elaborate and successful brothel in Hyderabad for years. Her clients are some of the most prominent and wealthy ones. The popular women from her brothel are Zeenat who is a classical singer and Basanti who is a classical dancer. Rukhmani is however very possessive of Zeenat who is a virgin and her beauty attracts many. A lot of clients have expressed their wish to bed Zeenat
but Rukhmani turns them down. Meanwhile Mr. Agarwal’s son Sushil is soon to be married to the new landlord Mr. Gupta’s daughter Malti. Mr. Agarwal asks Rukhmani to get Zeenat and Basanti to perform at their engagement. While performing Sushil is attracted to Zeenat’s beauty and meets her after the show. She too is infatuated by him and both begin getting close. Turns out, Sushil refuses to marry MAlti and wants to pursue Zeenat. Rukhmani then tells Zeenat that she is the illegimate child of Mr. Agarwal with another prostitute. This makes Zeenat and Sushil siblings. However, Sushil and Zeenat elope and all hell breaks lose. Rukhmani Bai sobs hearing the news. Meanwhile Zeenat feels guilty about her biological realtion with Sushil and runs away from him. Sushil is heartbroken and devastated with this. Rukhmani Bai then leaves the brothel to the girls and goes far away. The film is directed by Shyam Benegal and produced by Freni Variava and Lalit Bijlani. The music is composed by Vanraj Bhatia. The star cast includes Amrish Puri, Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi, Smita Patil, Saeed Jaffrey, Satish Kaushik, Aditya Bhattacharya, Neena Gupta, Soni Razdan and Ila Arun.
