The orphan and shipwreck survivor Raja works as a coolie forming a trio of friends with Mangoo, a pickpocket, and Vithal, a hansom cab driver. Mala and her father come to the city where she is kidnapped by Banke and sold to a rich man while her father accuses Mangoo of theft. Mangoo kills the father. Mala escapes and finds shelter with Raja, with whom she falls in love. The problem with the trio increase when they enlist in the army for WW2. The film opposes religious faith to atheistic fatalism (the latter exemplified by Mangoo whose mother dies in accident and he becomes a killer) and dares to present a couple openly living together as Mala stubbornly rejects the pressures of her stepmother and her villainous cousin Madan.