Meeting accidentally five years after their divorce, a couple reflects on how their marriage collapsed despite transparency.
Mahendra is in love with Maya and would like to marry her. But Maya is a woman of the 20th century, who does not believe in marriage, but would like to continue having a relationship. Mahendra's family pressures him into getting married, and he finally gives in and marries another woman by the name of Sudha. But Mahendra is unable to get Maya out of his mind, and his marriage with Sudha fails, and ends up with a formal separation. Years later, Mahendra and Sudha meet at a railway station, and both do remember each other, and share their experiences after their separation. There is one shocking experience that sudha does not share, but which Mahendra will find out soon.—rAjOo ([email protected])
Mahender (Naseeruddin Shah) gets down at the railway station and makes his way to the waiting room just as it starts to rain heavily. A woman, Sudha (Rekha), is already sitting in the waiting room. On seeing him, she tries to hide her face from him. The woman goes outside and checks with the station master if there is a different place to wait for her train, but there isn't.
Mahender's train is at 7 30 AM the next morning. As Sudha comes back into the waiting room, she runs into Mahender, who is stunned to see her. Soon, the only other family in the waiting room leaves for their train, and Sudha and Mahender are left alone.
Mahender had lost the key for his VIP suitcase and knew that sometimes the VIP suitcase keys are interchangeable. He sees that Sudha has a VIP suitcase, but is reluctant to ask her for a key, until the station master helps him out. Mahender goes to a bath in the toilet and Sudha watches over his open suitcase. Later, Mahender invites Sudha for a cup of tea.Mahender says that he was in Darjeeling for a campaign and was returning home. Sudha is wearing Vermillion and a Mangalsutra, indicating that she is married and Mahender assumes that she is still married to him.
The station canteen was closed so Mahender went outside the station in pouring rain to bring back some food. Mahender is soaked to the bone and Sudha helps take care of him and dries him off.
Flashback: Mahender has an accomplished business dealing with photography. Mahender's grandfather (Shammi Kapoor) is also Sudha's father figure. Incidentally, he had been engaged to Sudha for 5 years but always made some excuse to delay their wedding. Sudha's mother Parvati (Sulbha Deshpande) is also worried and wants them to get married at the earliest. At first Mahender said that he was completing his studies and then he said that he needed time to set up his photography shop.Sudha is a teacher at a school in Panchgani.
However, this time Mahender's grandfather has fixed the wedding on the first week of the following month. Mahender reveals to Sudha that he is having an affair with one of the most radical representations of feminism in a girl called Maya (Anuradha Patel). Mahender says that he and Maya are also physically intimate and are husband and wife in all practical sense in a live-in relationship.Sudha asks Mahender to bring Maya to her (Sudha's) father figure and reveal his intention of marrying Maya instead.
He returns to tell Maya, but Maya has disappeared, leaving him some poetry. Mahender tries to find Maya, and even asks her friends, but fails. Mahender knew that Maya was estranged from her parents, and they had disowned her when she moved to Mumbai to join the film institute. Without Maya, Mahender had no reason to face his grandfather and refuse the marriage to Sudha.
Mahender then marries Sudha and is quite happy. Mahender still carries Maya's photo in his wallet. Sudha feels that she is sharing Mahender with the memory of Maya.The sudden return of Maya causes tensions in their married life. Mahender frequently tells Sudha about all the beautifully poignant, loving and authentic things Maya did over the years that they lived together. Mahender has an amicable relationship with Maya simultaneously. Sudha remains wary of Maya's presence in her marriage.Later, Maya tries to commit suicide, and this leads to Mahender spending time with her over a few weeks.
Sudha, not knowing about Maya's suicide attempt and therefore believing that Mahender is being unfaithful to her, feels that her marriage was a mistake, and questions Mahender about his intentions. He then tells her strongly that he is going to bring Maya home to talk to her. Sudha is adamantly against this, but Mahender leaves with determination. However, Maya hears Sudha's anger on the phone and by the time Mahender reaches to pick her up, she has gone away. When he returns home without Maya, he finds that Sudha has also left. Mahender, unable to bear the shock, gets a heart attack.
In the days and months that follow, he is looked after by Maya. Sudha continues as a teacher in Panchgani. As time passes, Mahender is beginning to feel convinced that it is time for him to bring Sudha back home. But then he gets Sudha's letter saying that she is releasing him from their marriage and that he is free to marry Maya.
A sudden uncontrolled outburst from Mahender makes Maya realize that she was the cause for Sudha's departure and that Mahender missed Sudha deeply. Maya suddenly feels estranged at this abrupt change in their relationship and, in the night, rides off on her motorbike. Mahender rushes to follow her in his car to stop her, but then Maya's long scarf gets entangled in the back wheel of her bike, because of which she gets dragged off her bike and strangled to death.
Sudha is deeply grieved on hearing about Maya's end. Later, as the time for their train approaches, Sudha's husband (Shashi Kapoor) bursts in unexpectedly to pick her up, and Mahender realizes with a shock that Sudha is now married. As Sudha's husband leaves the waiting room with her luggage, Mahender asks her to forgive him. She touches Mahender's feet as a plea for his forgiveness and for his permission (Ijaazat) for her to leave him, something which she had not received the last time they had separated.
Mahender grants her wishes, speaks well of her husband, and gives her his blessings for a happy life. Sudha's husband returns to see what is holding her up, and then, seeing Sudha's teary face, it dawns on him that this man must be her former husband.
The movie ends with Sudha and her husband moving on along the platform, and Sudha hanging back a little and looking back tearfully and with great regret, as if she does not want to leave, while Mahender stands outside the waiting room looking on forlornly as she recedes from him.
