Ghazala (Shabana Azmi) has been married to Munirmiya (Srivallabh Vyas) for several years, and has given birth to a daughter, Salma (Rajeshwari Sachdev) Munir is unhappy that Ghazala has been unable to bear him any sons, and is forced to face his abuse, and then is subsequently thrown out of the house, in order to make way for him to marry again; Hasina (Surekha Sigri-Rege) is Ghazala's mom, married at a very young age, to an older man, faces the risk of cancer of the uterus; Educated, Arrogant and god-fearing Afsana (Nandita Das) has three children, and is upset with her spouse, Khurshid (Rajit Kapur), Hasina's son, for undergoing a vasectomy, and leaves him; Najma (Alka Trivedi) is an uneducated housewife, having given birth to seven children, five of whom have died so far due to malnutrition, and is the wife of Khaleej, Hasina's older son; Salma is the daughter of Ghazala, who is expected to marry at an early age, to a much older man, as there is no point in her undergoing further education, mainly due to her dad abandoning her.