The film is loosely based on the classic folktale of the hare and the tortoise, providing a modern interpretation. It is based on S.G. Sathye's Marathi play Sasa Aani Kasav (Hare and Tortoise).
The tortoise — Rajaram P. Joshi (Naseeruddin Shah) — is a middle-class clerk living in a chawl (a common lower middle-class apartment complex which has several families living in small rooms with common toilets) in Bombay. He is secretly in love with his neighbour Sandhya Sabnis (Deepti Naval), but is unable to express his love due to his timid nature. Rajaram is a good natured and hardworking man. His neighbours and colleagues take advantage of his simplicity.
One day Rajaram's smooth-talking, roguish friend Vasudev aka Bashu (Farooque Shaikh) — the hare — comes visiting as a house guest and makes himself at home in the chawl. Bashu makes a good impression on everybody by his charming, friendly behaviour, his extraordinary good looks and exaggerated stories of success.
Bashu starts wooing Sandhya, and she falls in love with him. He then joins Rajaram's company Footprint Shoes by impressing the owner Mr. Dhindhoria with untrue stories about his work experience in "good ol' England" and his newfound love of golf. Dhindhoria has a passion for golf and is easily impressed. Typically, Bashu soon starts flirting with Dhindhoria's beautiful and young wife Anuradha (Mallika Sarabhai) as well as his daughter Jojo (Winnie Paranjape) by his first marriage, courting both women at the same time.
In the chawl, meanwhile, the Sabnis family decides to get Sandhya married to Bashu much to Rajaram's shock and disappointment. But on the day of the engagement, Bashu disappears. The footloose and fancy free youth does not wish to be tied down by marriage. The engagement is called off. Rajaram then offers to marry the devastated Sandhya, but she hints that she has been very intimate with Bashu and is therefore unworthy of Rajaram. Still, Rajaram shows his love by offering to accept her and finally expresses his long repressed love towards her. They get married. Meanwhile, Bashu ensnares an Arab employer and flies off to the Middle East on his next adventure.
