Parveen Babi

The story of an ordinary man who goes through a lot in his life and is forced to join the underworld.

The plot is an intricately woven one. Starts from childhood with story of Ashok (also called Shoki by his childhood friend Vinod) (Dharmendra) who is a wealthy industrialist's only son passionate about cars from childhood befriends Vinod (Vinod Khanna) who is passionate about trains and its his dream to make India's fastest train and Rakesh (Vinod Mehra) shares same passion as Vinod is also his friend, and Randhir (Danny Denzongpa) in tussle from childhood to make a better train than Vinod's. Childhood turns into adulthood and one day both attend a dance function organized by the Indian Railways, this is where Ashok and Vinod fall in love with two beautiful women Seema (Hema Malini) and Sheetal (Parveen Babi). Ashok is now deeply in love with Seema (Hema Malini) and both are planning to get married after their engagement. Vinod is married to Sheetal(Parveen Babi) and they have a son Raju. One day Vinod, who is now a top notch railway engineer, gets awarded with the contract to build a Super-fast express train between New Delhi and Mumbai. Rakesh(Vinod Mehra)is his assistant. Randhir the losing engineer and ex-lover of Sheetal (Parveen Babi) swears revenge and leaves. As the three friends celebrate Vinod's success, Seema leaves for a pilgrimage. Ashok hears that his father has died. He rushes to his funeral also to find out that his entire wealth is debt-ridden and he is left with nothing. As he is still recovering, he gets a letter from Seema breaking off their relationship stating that she was interested in him as a rich man and since he is now poor, she is not interested anymore. Heartbroken, Ashok leaves town. Six years pass by. Vinod has completely focused on building the train, completely ignoring his wife and son. On the day of the train's inauguration, she comes to fetch him for their anniversary party. He refuses to go since the next day is the day of the train's inaugural journey. Heartbroken, she puts her son, Raju, on the train to go to her mother, and leaves Vinod. Iftekhar, their boss, asks Vinod to go to Mumbai by flight for the arrival of the train. Vinod refuses saying that he needs to be in the control room. So his assistant and friend, Rakesh (Vinod Mehra) goes instead. The train starts from New Delhi where a lot of the characters board the train. Prem Nath is a devout Hindu priest. Om Shiv Puri is a royal king, Raja Mam Mohan, traveling with his wife Padmini. Ranjeet is a smuggler fleeing with stolen diamonds and his girlfriend Raziya. Sujeet Kumar is an undercover police officer dressed as a Christian priest and following Ranjeet the smuggler. Asrani is an ex-Army Colonel P.K. Bhandari. Keshto Mukherjee and Paintail are traveling without tickets hiding in train's lavatories. Simi Grewal is a school teacher, taking a group of students on a visit to Mumbai. Neetu Singh is fleeing home to escape a forced marriage. Ravi (Jeetendra) is a small-time thief who tries to befriend Neetu Singh in order to steal her jewelry. Seema is traveling to Mumbai with her cousin (Navin Nischol), who is a doctor. Rakesh's pregnant wife is traveling to Mumbai with her mother. Ashok also quietly boards the train so that he can be a part of his friend Vinod's success and is shocked to see Seema. he sees her with her cousin and mistakes him as her husband. He snaps at her before she can say anything, but befriends Raju after recognizing him. Unknown to all of them, Randhir (the engineer who swore revenge) has put a bomb in the engine at the Mathura Railway station and disengaged the vacuum brakes so that even guard wouldn't be able to stop the train. The bomb was timed to explode halfway through the journey. He hopes to sabotage the train and thereby destroy Vinod's reputation without a scant thought to the lives of the passengers. Meanwhile Ashok leaves the train as he does not wanted to travel with Seema in the train. He meets Randheer in a bar where Randheer tells him that he has fulfilled his and Ashok's revenge. (He was misunderstood that Ashok must be seeking revenge from Seema for her betrayal). Knowing this Ashok immediately leaves to catch the train before explosion time so that he can save his friend's train and save passengers. He manages to catch the train at Kota Railway station, but was unfortunately late. Halfway, the bomb explodes killing the drivers Jeevan Lal and Dango, and destroying the brakes and accelerator. Ashok goes outside the train and goes to the engine compartment and saves the guard (Osman Ali) and brings him back. Vinod, who is desperately trying to save their lives, talks to them through All India Radio and asks them to go to the engine compartment and apply the emergency brakes. The radio broadcast completely panics all passengers and the train cooks come running to find out what happened. In their haste, they leave the cooking gas on. The news also panics all the relatives who are waiting at Mumbai and they besiege Vinod. Sheetal also comes to him and shouts at him asking him to save their son, Raju. Ashok, Ravi and the guard climb on top of the train and try to reach the engine. Meanwhile, Rakesh's wife enters labor and Seema's doctor cousin attends to her, asking for some hot water. A cook lights a match to heat up some water in the kitchen. The open gas explodes killing the guard Osman Ali, the cook and several passengers and half the train starts burning. Ashok and Ravi barely make it back and with the help of some passengers put up some gaps between the burning compartments and the passengers. Vinod tries another effort by sending a helicopter and trying to get someone to land on the engine compartment. Randhir sabotages this mission by volunteering to go on the helicopter. He drops on to the engine compartment but does nothing leading Ashok and his superiors to believe he is dead. Meanwhile Ashok finds out why Seema left him. She had lost her leg on the way back from the pilgrimage. She didn't want to be a burden on him in his poverty and decided to go away. They patch up. Ravi and Neetu also fall in love. Sheetal also comes back to Vinod and apologizes for her behavior. She gives him courage for his last attempt to save the train. Rakesh, who is in Mumbai, tries to build a steep incline quickly which will reduce the speed of the train once it reaches Mumbai and may yet stop the train but he is running out of time as the train is speeding towards Mumbai and is just hours from reaching it. Vinod tries one last effort by getting an engine to drive along the Super fast train. He asks Ashok and Ravi to come up top and throws a rope saying that he will come over to the train and stop the train himself. Ranjeet tries to escape by using the same rope to the other train knowing that he will be arrested in Mumbai. Asrani tries to stop but Ranjeet throws him off the train. Ashok fights Ranjeet who falls off the train. Vinod comes over to the train. He says that he has brought fireproof suits and some dynamite(just in case). They will wear fireproof suits and go to the engine and apply the emergency brakes. Vinod, Ashok and Ravi go through the fire to the engine where they find Randhir. Randhir tries to kill Vinod but falls off the train in the scuffle. They reach the engine to find that the drivers are dead and all systems have failed. Ashok comes up with an idea of blasting the couplings of the compartments from the engine. Vinod disagrees saying that passenger compartments will derail if blasted off at this speed, but then remembers the incline being built by Rakesh. They send Ravi back to warn the passengers and to ask everyone to tie themselves to their seat. Vinod asks Rakesh over wireless to clear the incline area even though it isn't completely ready and then Ashok and he set up the dynamite charges on the couplings. As the train starts climbing the incline, they blast the dynamite and jump off the slowing engine. The engine blasts through Mumbai station and stops on the road. But the passenger compartment slows down and comes to a complete halt. All passengers get off safely. Vinod and Ashok happily come walking they're hurt but alive. Everyone connects with their relatives and the film ends as a tribute to the soul of India.

The story outlines the parallels with that of Adam & Eve. Here, Adam is Ranjit (Sanjeev Kumar), Eve is Sharda (Vidya Sinha) while the apple is Nirmala (Ranjita Kaur). Ranjit is newly employed in a company, whose pay scales can be gauged from the fact that he goes to work on a bicycle. However, this bicycle itself brings him face-to-face with Sharda, when he bumps into her by accident. Sharda's bicycle gets badly damaged & Ranjit drops her off. Ranjit has the habit to writing everything in his diary and that day he expresses his desire to meet Sharda again and take things forward with her. That same evening, Ranjit goes to the wedding of his friend. Abdul Karim Durrani (Asrani) is Ranjit's a co-worker at office & a poet. Sharda is also present at the ceremony. Sharda & Ranjit's love blossoms from there & soon they get married with the permission of Sharda's father (Om Shivpuri). Ranjit at that time earned Rs 600 per month. On their honeymoon night, Abdul trains Ranjit that whoever gets the upper hand on that night, stays on top of the marriage for the rest of their lives. Ranjit starts bossing Sharda around in a loving way from the next morning on-wards. Sharda is a simple woman and is happy to follow the directions of her husband. Sharda is barred from reading his personal diary. Ranjit would end every instruction to Sharda with an ominous "or else". But pretty soon, Sharda retaliates and wants to know what the "Or else" entails. This prompts Ranjit to backtrack, and they establish a marriage of mutual love and respect. In the course of a few years, Ranjit becomes a father, buys a car & rises to be the Sales Manager of the company. Sharda & Ranjit are still living in marital bliss although Ranjit has a bit of a roving eye for beautiful women. Ranjit now earns Rs 3239 per month as salary. That is, until Nirmala, Ranjit's new secretary, shows up. Ranjit is inexplicably attracted to Nirmala. She is an honest girl who is trying to make two ends meet. She is much more beautiful compared to Sharda. But most of all, she knows nothing about Ranjit's true intentions & his married life. Meanwhile, Abdul is also attracted to Nirmala and keeps running into her, but Nirmala does not pay him any attention. Ranjit is initially upset with his thoughts about Nirmala, but finally gives in. He carefully plans his further steps. He pretends to be the helpless grieving husband of a cancer-stricken wife, who won't live much longer. Ranjit says that his wife has been sick for 6 years and is completely bed-ridden, requiring round-the-clock care and attention. Nirmala feels sorry for him, thus making it easier for him to get close to her. Nobody, not Sharda, not even his closest friend, suspects a thing. As Ranjit spends more time with the youthful Nirmala, he has a newfound zest for life, which reflects in his energy at home with Sharda. Ranjit secretly reads the Kamasutra book in his bathroom. Nirmala lives with her maternal grandfather. Ranjit has an old car that keeps breaking down, but he refuses to sell the car as this was the first one he bought, and he believes that it brings good luck to him. One day, Ranjit bluffs to Sharda that he will be late coming home as he has a meeting. He takes Nirmala out to dinner. Next day, Sharda finds Nirmala's handkerchief, with lipstick marks on it, in Ranjit's pocket. She immediately confronts Ranjit, who makes up a story about a co-worker whose handkerchief he may have accidentally taken. Sharda reluctantly believes him. Ranjit decides to take his next steps more carefully. Sharda too starts thinking that her fears were unfounded. Ranjit makes even more interesting back up plans: He prepares two books of poetry, professing his love. The poems are the same in both, only one book contains Nirmala's name, and the other contains Sharda's. Ranjit keeps on taking Nirmala to luncheons & dinners, without Sharda's knowledge. The turning point comes when Sharda sees him in a hotel with Nirmala. She later asks him about his meeting, about which the clueless Ranjit lies. Sharda's fears are confirmed. She starts spying on him & Nirmala, taking incriminating pictures. After sufficient evidence is obtained, she secretly meets Nirmala, posing as a journalist. Nirmala thinks Sharda intends to blackmail her. But Sharda reassures her that she won't. When Nirmala tells her about Ranjit & his ailing wife, Sharda reveals her true identity. Sharda also finds the two diaries. Meanwhile, Ranjit gets another promotion & comes home happily to tell his wife about it. Sharda coolly tells him that he is busted. Ranjit does not know what has hit him. He turns around, only to see Nirmala behind him. Sharda tells him that she is leaving him & the divorce papers will be soon sent to him. Sharda & Nirmala console each other. Ranjit calls upon his friend Abdul & lies that Nirmala has said some malicious lies to Sharda about him. Abdul sides with him & lies about Nirmala's character. Sharda exposes Ranjit in front of him as well, with help of the evidence she has collected. Sharda tells Ranjit to choose either her or Nirmala. Ranjit quietly gives Nirmala some money & lies to her, in a last-ditch attempt at damage control. But honest Nirmala returns the money to Sharda, making things even worse for Ranjit. Sharda prepares to walk out on Ranjit. Meanwhile, Nirmala also resigns & leaves his life forever. Everything looks bleak for Ranjit. As Sharda is about to leave home, her innocent son asks what is happening. Just for his sake, Ranjit & Sharda try to reconcile. Life comes back on track. But soon another secretary Neeta (Parveen Babi) joins the office & Ranjit tries to resort to his antics once more. As if by coincidence, Ranjit's friend Abdul suddenly walks in & Ranjit backs off, taking this as a warning.

A terminally ill man, Ravi frames himself for a murder so his family receives the reward money. When he is successfully cured, he looks for the real killer to vindicate himself.