Beautiful Radha lives in a small hill-station in India. One day, Mahesh comes for sight-seeing, both meet, fall in love with each other, get intimate, and Mahesh promises to return, marry her and take her with him to live in Bombay. He does not return, Radha continues to search for him in every train that stops at Shampur, in vain. She eventually gives birth to a baby girl, Laxmi, and both are looked after by Shampur's kind-hearted Station Master. Radha does come across Mahesh, but he refuses to recognize her, and she kills herself. The Station Master takes Laxmi to her next of kin, in all two families, but all reject Laxmi, consider her inauspicious, and will have nothing to do with her. He leaves Laxmi with her maternal grand-parent, Bhagwanti and her husband, but Laxmi is abused and she runs away to Bombay, where she is befriended and looked after by a blind beggar, Anwar.