Manorama comes to Lucknow along with her infant daughter after the death of her husband, searching for her maternal uncle. But when she finds that her uncle sold his house and has died, she becomes clueless and has nowhere to go. Moreover, her infant daughter becomes sick due to lack of food and shelter. Desperate to save her, Manorama leaves her at the gate of a wealthy man, Seth Jagatnarayan. Jagatnarayan, having no children for himself, decides to adopt her and names her as Sarita. After few days, Manorama comes again as a nanny and settles with them. Jagatnarayan moves to Bombay to start a new life and to hide the fact that Sarita wasn't his biological daughter. There, they are joined by his sister and her mentally retarded son Lali. Sarita grows up to be a beautiful, intelligent and carefree young girl under the care of her father and nanny. A young man, Arun gets appointed as a tutor to Sarita. Sarita later comes to know that he was indeed her favorite poet who writes under the pen name of Rahee and gets attracted to him. They grow close and Arun's family wants them to get married. But they get rejected by Jagatnarayan on the grounds of their poverty, leaving Arun and Sarita disappointed. Jagatnarayan settles Sarita's match with the only son of a wealthy man, Motilal. But Manorama, after seeing Sarita's plight, decides to stop that marriage at any rate and writes a letter to Motilal explaining that Sarita wasn't Jagatnarayan's biological daughter. Enraged, Motilal confirms it with Jagatnarayan and cancels the engagement. Jagatnarayan, having no other way, agrees to marry Sarita to Arun. But he sends Manorama away from his house as she revealed the secret to destroy Sarita's future. During the wedding ceremony, Manorama comes for one last time to give her blessings to Sarita, and gets insulted by Jagatnarayan's sister. She leaves to commit suicide as she thinks that she has finished all her responsibilities towards Sarita. But Jagatnarayan finds the photo of young Sarita with her biological parents in Manorama's luggage and by adding one thing to another, concludes that Manorama was indeed Sarita's biological mother. They go searching for her and find her at railway track. Sarita calls her mother for the first time, stopping her from committing suicide. They request her to come back and stay with them and everybody reconciles.
