chunk: Hasari Pal (Om Puri) is a rural farmer who moves to Calcutta with his wife (Shabana Azmi) and three children in search of a better life. The Pals do not get off to a very good start: They are cheated out of their rent money and thrown out on the streets, and it's difficult for Hasari to find a job to support them. But the determined family refuses to give up and eventually finds its place in the poverty-stricken city.
  Meanwhile, on the other end of Calcutta, Max Lowe (Patrick Swayze), a doctor disillusioned by an easy job in a Houston hospital, has arrived in search of spiritual enlightenment after the loss of a patient there. However, he encounters misfortune as soon as he arrives. After being tricked by a young prostitute, he is roughed up by thugs and left bleeding in the street without his documents and valuable possessions.