Ravi has settled in his dreary fate as indented boy-laborer in a textile plant outside Calcutta, making sure he earns and saves more then other boys to buy his release. Yet when young, naive Masha is sold into service by her debt-crushed father, Ravi falls in love with her and rather the see her sold as private all-purposes servant, spends his savings on her release. They agree to meet in Calcutta's largest Shiva temple once he's free. Being the captive of his own skill, that takes years, while she becomes a brothel's star. Ravi arrives as a man, and unable to find her accepts to become an old carpet trader's brilliant right hand and near-fiancé of his beloved granddaughter Deepa. Fate makes her marry affluent customs official Yani and Ravi re-orphaned Deepa before the true lovers meet again.