Dastak

About the movie

Hamid Ahmed lives a poor lifestyle in a Bombay slum area along with his wife, Salma, and works as a clerk with the Bombay Municipal Corporation. Salma comes from a small village where her widowed dad, Rajdhar Khan, lives with his daughter, Zohra. Hamid then rents a small apartment in 'Yahya Manzil' little knowing that it's former occupant was Shamshad Begum, a prostitute. The couple's lives are disrupted when strange men knock on their door late at night insisting on seeing Shamshad. The locals, especially Akhtar the Paanwala, wants Salma to start entertaining males as this will increase his business. When Hamid and Salma both refuse, Akhtar and others create a ruckus and even inform the Police that Salma is soliciting males as a prostitute. While Hamid spends all day at work, Salma is all by herself, and one day gets lured by Shamshad herself and has a nervous breakdown. To calm his wife, both of them go to visit her father. While there, Hamid comes to know that his father-in-law is near destitute and the couple return back to Bombay. Salma insists that they move out, Hamid starts looking for alternative accommodation, he does find one, even pays part of the deposit, promising to pay the rest within one week and is told that if he fails to keep his promise the this amount will be forfeited. He then gets the news that Zohra's wedding has been arranged and about fifteen hundred Rupees are needed. A lot of pressure is on Hamid now to find money to pay the rest of the deposit as well as provide for Zohra's marriage - the question does remain what will Hamid do under these challenging circumstances?—rAjOo (gunwanti@hotmail.com)