• Anil Kapoor... Amar R. Kumar
• Meenakshi Seshadri... Seema
• Raj Kiran... Vijay R. Kumar
• Deepti Naval... Sharda V. Kumar
• Bindu... Durga R. Kumar
• Kader Khan... Bajrangi
• Rita Bhaduri... Kanchan, Bajrangi's wife
• Saeed Jaffrey... Ramprasad Kumar
• Om Prakash... Karamchand
• Sulbha Deshpande... Sharda's mother

The Kumar family consists of Ramprasad and his wife Durga. Their married son is Vijay, his wife Sharda and daughter Pinky. They also have a married daughter Kanchan whose husband Bajrangi is a ghar jamai. Amar is their bachelor and unemployed son.

The movie opens with the dysfunctional Kumar family, where most of its members are highly greedy, lazy, selfish and abusive. Durga is a short-tempered, aggressive woman who physically and verbally abuses her daughter in law, Sharada, for every minor reason and belittles her for her poverty. Her elder son, Vijay follows her footsteps and is insensitive and abusive towards his wife and daughter. Durga's lazy daughter, Kanchan, is just like her mother and falsely accuses Sharada of being lazy, which results in the latter getting beaten up. Kanchan is also highly domineering over her husband, Bajrangi, who does the housework. Ramprasad is a henpecked man. Sharada is a meek woman and respects her family, but nobody appreciates her work. Bajrangi is a simple and innocent man from a rural area and is not so intelligent, though he has sympathy for Sharada.

The only member in the family who is truly good at heart and who actually cares for Sharada is Amar, Vijay's younger brother. Amar is an unemployed youth who is honest, kind and helpful, going as far as to beat up pickpockets to help an old woman. During his quest for a job, he runs into Seema, the only daughter of a rich businessman who hates men and their domineering ways. Seema runs an NGO for the welfare of women, though Amar criticizes her for her biased hatred towards men.

Seema's father, Karamchand forces her to get married or else he would commit suicide. Seema tries to involve Amar in a false contract marriage and entices him with money. Amar is outraged and flatly refuses her offer.

Karamchand secretly overhears the entire exchange. Though disappointed with Seema, he is impressed with Amar's honest conduct and appoints him as the manager of his cycle factory. He also asks Amar to convince his daughter that not all men are domineering. Amar begins his successful career as a factory manager, earning Karamchand's trust and Seema's irritation.

Meanwhile, Durga asks Amar to enter in an engagement with and eventually marry Sona, the only daughter of an industrialist, as he offers a dowry of Rs 1 million. Amar belittles his mother's greed and dismisses her idea. Durga demands Rs 10,000 from Sharada. Sharada pleads with her hard, but Durga is relentless and has her thrown out of the house. Sharada's mother, living in poverty finds out about her daughter's situation and succumbs to pressure. Sharada protests to Durga, but Durga kicks her and Pinky out of the house.

A few days later, Amar is devastated when he finds out that Sharada and Pinky died in a roadside accident. Nevertheless, the family is apathetic towards these deaths and nonchalantly ask Vijay to enter into an engagement with Sona. Vijay complies, much to Amar's disgust.

One day, Seema asks Amar to come to her house, so that she can explain her hatred for men. She shows Amar a moth