Rahul Dev, a common man from Mumbai, is on a mission to find true love. He has a cute, petite, blonde-haired baby girl, Avish (aka Chandra), whom he adores. But Rahul’s father, an ardent Right wing follower, doesn’t want anything less than Rahul’s dream girl for the family. He bars his daughter from Matru Prabha – the Hindu religious school where his daughter completes her education – and forces Rahul to take up boxing, in order to prove that he is strong enough to face life. This way, Rahul comes out of the house at times and spends hours on end on the mat. He also gets drunk regularly, which is something that the family members do not appreciate.
Rahul’s father passes away, suddenly, when Rahul is still very young. Rahul and his mother return home, and are told by their father that their father was a complete fanatic and did not believe in liberalization or freedom of speech. They were even told that their mother had been married to a Muslim man for thirty years and that she was forced to marry him because she didn’t follow orders. This news about their father’s attitude towards the girl who he had just met infuriates Rahul and forces him to abandon his quest for love.
Once again, Rahul runs away from home, seeking solace in the arms of Vida, a Hindu mythological character, who has the power to bring people back to life. But Rahul soon finds out that Vida is merely a creation of the Hindu religion to make Rahul miserable. He goes on a wild goose chase, searching for Vida everywhere. Eventually he manages to corner Vida near his house and captures her, but not before she is zapped by electricity, thanks to some Hindu symbols that Rahul had hidden.
When Rahul returns home, his father tries to stop him by threatening to expose his ‘affair’ to anyone who enters the house. Rahul avoids his father and goes off to find Vida, whom he intends to marry. But when he arrives at her groom’s hideout, he discovers that it’s empty. The next day, Rahul’s father returns from work and tells him that he has been cheating on his daughter.
Desperate, angry and confused, Rahul runs off to his only remaining friend Bindu who lives near Rambadevi in Gujarat. Bindu tells him about his father’s affair with Vida, which prompts Rahul to run away to Vida’s village. However, Rahul’s father convinces him to return to his daughter’s home so that he can ask for forgiveness. Once there, Rahul’s father asks him to fetch some documents from the house of his dead wife, thereby completing the marriage ceremony between him and Vida.
All this may sound melodramatic to an American reader, who may have come to India only to experience first hand the Rajasthani way of love and romance. This is not to say that the story is a bad one; rather it’s a story that highlights the passion and emotion that often underlie true love. Rahul dev on finding love may be too much of a fantasy to some, but then again, even American TV dramas have their own version of fantasy. The story ends happily, as Rahul gets married to Vida, who in turn becomes pregnant with Rahul’s son.