Summaries

Synopsis

Rakesh Trivedi (Abhishek Bachchan) comes from a small village of Fursatganj. His father T. T. Chandra P. Trivedi (Raj Babbar) is a ticket collector on the train and wants him to get into a similar occupation as well. Rakesh says that being a TT was a dead-end job as after 35 years of service not even a single passenger remembers his name. Chandra counters that his honesty, integrity and his respect in society are his earnings from his career.

However, Rakesh has big dreams; he is forever coming up with new business plans and is convinced he will make it big one day. One of his ideas is to spend Rs 50 on a shower head on his roof, and charge people 50 Paise per use. He argues that the capital will be paid up in 20 days, and the rest is pure profit. Rakesh's mother (Talluri Rameshwari) is sure that one day he will go to jail.He adamantly refuses any notion that he will one day work in a 9-to-5 environment.

Vimmi Saluja (Rani Mukerji) is the daughter of a Punjabi family (father Mr Saluja (Puneet Issar) and mother Mrs Saluja (Kiran Juneja)) in another small village of Pankinagar; she spends her hours watching films and studying supermodels, and dreams of becoming Miss India one day.

One day Vimmi's parents tell her they have arranged her marriage to a young man with a decent government job (a clerk). At the same time Rakesh's father gives him an ultimatum - go to the interview for the job his father has arranged for him or get out of the house.

Rakesh and Vimmi both pack their bags in their respective homes and sneak out in the dark of the night. They reach Lucknow, where Vimmi tries to enter herself in the Miss India contest but gets thrown out after an argument (as the entries to the competition had closed 2 days ago).Rakesh tries to sell his ideas for an investment scheme, but a businessman Q. Q. Qureshi (Sanjay Mishra) turns him away. Rakesh even had a list of 500 investors from his town, who were ready to invest Rs 1000 each in a well-run investment scheme. Qureshi tells Rakesh that his ideas have no merit but keeps his file.Rakesh and Vimmi bump into each other at a train station (where they were spending the night as they had nowhere else to go) and become friends after realizing their stories are similar. Both support and encourage each other to achieve their dreams.

Rakesh decides to go to Kanpur to visit the HQ of the investment company he visited earlier and pitch his idea again. He also convinces Vimmi to apply for the Miss India contest from Kanpur.

In fact, Qureshi stole ideas from Rakesh's presentation file and when Rakesh enters the HQ office, the manager (Mithilesh Chaturvedi) states someone before him came in with the same idea. After finding out that Qureshi who Rakesh had approached has used his idea to make money for himself. Qureshi was given a bonus of Rs 10,000 since he even had a list of 500 potential investors.Vimmi is not allowed entry as her address falls in the Lucknow district. Vimmi storms out in anger when the organizer demands sexual favors in exchange for allowing her entry from Kanpur district.

Rakesh and Vimmi meet again and decide to con Qureshi. Rakesh knew that Qureshi is staying at the Landmark hotel. He meets Qureshi at the bar and pretends that he has a much bigger scheme where he is getting a 2% stake in a media company. Vimmi poses as the owner of the media company, which offers to triple investments in 3 months Qureshi is lured and invests Rs 15,000.

With this money, Rakesh and Vimmi decide to travel to Mumbai, the only city Rakesh feels has an appreciation for talent and new ideas. Together they take a bus to Dehradun.Rakesh says that Rs 15,000 won't be enough for even a week in Mumbai an suggests doing more cons to earn more.

Unfortunately for India, they find the lifestyle too exciting to give up. Adopting the fake names of 'Bunty' and 'Babli', they successfully pull off scam after scam, looting and conning rich people dressed as local guides, religious priests, health inspectors, Tourism department, business partners, etc. Their flamboyant antics make them famous in newspapers nationwide. Along the way, they leave money for the poor and the destitute.Vimmi calls her parents and lets them know that she is OK, but homesick. Rakesh refuses to call his family.

In one of their larger scams, Babli buys all the washing machines from a mall for her new hotel. But then Bunty kills the power and fills the washing machines with sunglasses, watches and other items from the mall. Babli makes full payment for the machines but makes away with goods worth several times more.They finally catch a train to Mumbai. Soon Rakesh and Vimmi's friendship leads to romance, and they decide to continue scamming the rich as husband and wife. They get married in Agra near the Taj Mahal.They sell the Taj Mahal to a rich foreign couple who came to India to get married.

ACP Dashrath Singh (Amitabh Bachchan) is catching up with their scams and pranks, getting closer each time. Dashrath captures the truck driver Mehmood (Brijendra Kalra) who helped Bunty and Babli in the mall heist.Dashrath relentlessly pursues them across India in the hopes of putting them behind bars. To complicate matters, Rakesh and Vimmi have a child, and after a very close call eluding Dashrath they decide to quit conning for their child's sake. Ironically, this decision leads to their capture by Dashrath.While in custody, their heartfelt confessions and conversation soften the detective's heart and he let them go, certain he has destroyed Bunty and Babli's career as criminals.

Years later, Dashrath rescues them from their mundane and domestic lives to work for the nation thwarting the activities of other scammers.