On his pilgrimage to a temple to immerse the ashes of his mother in the sacred river, Rakhavan befriends a tribal family. He comes across the lives of the tribal people and their struggle.

Sunil leads a poor lifestyle along with his widowed mother, and two school-going siblings, Anu and Tikku. He gets married to Lakshmi, who soon gets pregnant. Anu graduates from school and each of the family make individual sacrifices so that she can attend college. During Diwali, Lakshmi falls down the stairs, is hospitalized, has a miscarriage, and will never be able to conceive. Sunil decides to keep this a secret from the rest of the family, but subsequently confides in his mother. When Lakshmi finds out she wants him to re-marry, but he refuses. Then Tikku is sent to live with his maternal uncle for a few days. Shortly thereafter the family will be faced with three crises as Anu prepares to elope with a wealthy fellow collegian, a death, and a theft.

An impoverished man and his young son travel to Calcutta and look for work, in order to make money that'll save their ancestral land from being seized by a corporation.

Arun is a timid accountant in Bombay who dreams of romancing Prabha, but is too shy to share his feelings. While Arun twiddles his thumbs, the suave Nagesh steps into the picture and turns on the heat, prompting Arun to take "love coaching" from "romance specialist" Julius Nagendranath to win Prabha back.

The postmaster of a village receives a check for 500,000 rupees, for the purpose of bequeathing it to the village’s most upstanding citizen.

Old woman Anandi moves to the city with her relatives and finds out their material side. She develops fondness for two rival street gangs of unemployed youth. These gangs are headed by two former friends turned foes in a time when society, politics and education are all losing their bearings in 1970s India.

Memdidi tells a simple and endearing story of Mrs. Roy (Memdidi), who moves in as a new neighbor to the two local tough guys, Bahadur Singh (David) and Sher Khan (Jayant), with a heart of gold. Hrishikesh Mukherjee's direction and screenplay makes this movie a gem and worth watching again and again.

Village born Lalloo re-locates to Bombay, and returns a wealthy man. He goes to meet his friend, Shankar alias Bhompu, and together they meet and share tales, mostly about women, sex, and playboy magazines' pictures. A Bollywood movie director is shooting a film nearby, and they go and meet him and his beautiful actress, Urvashi. After meeting Urvashi, Shankar feigns a racking cough, and tells his family that he must go to Bombay, and seek medical treatment. Together he and Lalloo take the next train to Bombay to see if they can find the biggest happiness in life.

Dr. Arun lives with his brother, Madhu; dad Judge Ramkrishan; and mom Kamla in a palatial house. He decides to help the poor and the needy and in order to do this he re-locates to a small town, where he meets with a young nurse named Sumati and both fall in love with each other. Sumati lives with her mom, Laxmi, and has no father. When Kamla starts looking for a prospective bride for Arun, he informs her that he has given his heart to Sumati. Ramkrishan sends for Laxmi, who gladly accepts the invitation. After her meeting, Arun inquires about the results with his mom and dad, and is told to forget about Sumati and marry someone else. When Arun asks for a reason behind their refusal, they refuse to divulge any information. The question remains, why did his parents turn down Sumati's mom, and what exactly happened during that meeting with her?

After her husband's death, Manorama is left alone with an infant daughter. The daughter falls ill due to poor nutrition, and in an act of desperation Manorama leaves the daughter in front of the house of Seth Jagatnarayan Chaudhary, a wealthy man who, having recently lost his wife, decides to adopt the girl. The following day, Manorama manages to get a job in the house as a servant but while she gets to care for Sarita like a mother, she longs for a day when her daughter might call her mom. Meanwhile Sarita grows up to be a beautiful girl who soon finds herself in some romantic entanglements.