When Sulabha receives an appointment letter from the Mahila Ashram, the rescue centre for abandoned women which is far away from her hometown, there is abig stir in the family. Sulabha is more interested in the problems of these hapless women. Her lawyer husband allows her to go reluctantly. She cannot take her fice-year-old daughter along with her. Torn between a need which she is not ablt to clearly define or articulate and her love for her family, she takes the painful decision to leave.
At the ashram, she is plunged into a world of unbelievable corruption and cruelty. She must cope with prostitution and black marketeering, sexual deviates, self-immolation, the pomposity and freed of a corrupt, over-riding managing committee... She encounters all the myriad, mindless ways in which human beings exploit one another. But there is also love and affection, a sense of community, as she identifies with inmates. They too respond with trust and respect.
Two runaway inmates commit suicide when they areforcible brought back by the police. There is a commission of inquiry. Sulabha fights back but ultimately resigns. Returning home after years, she finds the gap between her and her family widened. Her husband tells her that there is another woman in his life. She cannot adapt to this life, having seen and discovered herself in another life. She leaves her family and home.