In 1840, a girl named Amiran (Bansree Mandhani) is kidnapped from her home in Faizabad by Dilawar Khan (Vishwajeet Pradhan) who had been sent to jail based upon the evidence presented by Amiran's father. To take his revenge, he kidnaps Amiran and sells her to a brothel in Lucknow run by Khannum Jaan (Shabana Azmi). Bua Hussaini (Himani Shivpuri) and Maulvi Sahib (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) adopt Amiran and treat her as their own daughter. In the company of Khurshid (Ayesha Jhulka), Bismillah (Divya Dutta), and one of the courtesan's sons, Gauhar Mirza (Puru Raajkumar), Amiran learns the art of being a courtesan, or ''tawaif''.