Plot

A village girl agrees to a marriage to a king she has never met after he sends her a photograph of himself. But the man in the photograph is not the king but his most loyal slave, the handsome but mute Shankar.

Mute Shankar slogs day and night to satisfy the lust of wealthy businessman Raja Saab who has underworld contact. Raja Saab would like to marry the young and street-wise, Gauri, however Gauri would like to see a picture of her would be husband but is instead shown Shankar's picture, she immediately falls in love with him and agrees to marry but at the wedding altar, Gauri gets a shock when she sees Raja Saab, refuses to continue with the rituals of the marriage and is locked forever in a room. Circumstances forced Shankar and Gauri to elope but both is caught by Raja and his men, who beats Shankar and throw him to his death and Gauri is taken back to Raja Saab mansion and must undergo preparations to get married to him.—gavin (gunmasterM@hotmail.com)

With an intention of satisfying his sexual lust the elderly Raja Saab would like to get marry to a beautiful village belle named Gauri. Gauri is apprehensive about marriage but relents and asks for a photograph of Raja Saab; Raja Saab instead sends a photo of his dumb servant Shanker. But on the day of the wedding Gauri realizes that she is getting married to Raja Saab instead of Shanker and runs away with Shanker. Gauri and Shanker will be fated to run all their lives as Raja Saab is not willing to let Gauri slipped out of his hands that easily.—gavin (racktoo@hotmail.com)

Elderly Rajasaheb wants to marry young and comely Gauri to satisfy his sexual lusts, Gauri, who has never seen Rajasaheb, refuses to marry unless she actually sees a photo. So Rajasaheb sends a picture of his faithful but deaf and dumb servant, Shanker. Shanker and Gauri are married but in name only, and Gauri must spend the rest of her life with Rajasaheb.—rAjOo (gunwanti@hotmail.com)

Handsome but mute, Shankar (Shahrukh Khan) is raised by the powerful Raja (Amrish Puri), to whom he is loyal. But he treats him like a slave. Shankar is also unnecessarily beaten by Raja's brother Brijwa, a violent psychopath. Ruthless and cruel man with a large appetite for young women, Raja kills anyone who dares to defy him. Vedji (Ashok Saraf) is the Raja's doctor. Bindya is Raja's mistress and secretary. Raja sees Gauri (Madhuri Dixit), a happy innocent villager, and wishes to marry her. However, she wants to see a photo of her future husband first. Aware that she would instantly reject him, he sends her a photo of Shankar. Gauri uncle and aunt are complicit in this fraud. Gauri instantly agrees, and the wedding proceeds.

However, before the ceremony is completed, she discovers that Shankar isn't her groom and faints; Raja orders the priest to continue, though the marriage would be invalid while Gauri is unconscious. When she regains consciousness, she sees Raja trying to consummate with her and is shocked knowing they're married. He imprisons and tortures her. Gauri tries to commit suicide but Shankar saves her. She accuses him of ruining her life but upon knowing his innocence thanks to the son (Johnny Lever) of Raja's doctor who sometimes serves as Shankar's interpreter, she is sorry. Bindya is sexually unsatisfied with Raja, as he sleep every-time she wants to have sex with him. She goes to Shankar to satisfy herself, but ends up with Brijwa instead, who tries to sexually assault her. Shankar saves Bindya. Brijwa tells Raja that Shankar and Bindya were having an affair. Raja sells Bindya to a brothel (owned by Chandabai (Himani Shivpuri) as her punishment. When Gauri's brother Ashok (Mohnish Behl) comes to see her (he was working in Dubai and had no clue that Gauri had been married off), Raja threatens her to lie to him that she is happy otherwise he will kill Ashok. Gauri does so.

However, Shankar reveals the truth to Ashok by writing in the dirt. Raja and Brijwa (Salim Ghouse) (Raja's younger brother) kill Ashok who returned to rescue Gauri. Moments before dying, he has Shankar promise him to save Gauri; she and Shankar flee Raja's mansion. Enraged, Raja begins a murderous search to find Gauri and Shankar. After a long chase by jungle and mountains, Shankar uses his survival skills to kill Raja's men. Raja and his men leave due to being disadvantaged. During this, Gauri and Shankar begin to fall in love. Unexpectedly, Raja who is back with reinforcements sees and captures them by shooting Gauri in the arm.

Shankar is brutally beaten by Brijwa, and the corrupt DIG, and Raja slits his throat, then leaves him to die in the mountains; and Gauri is sold to the same brothel after Raja discovers she loves Shankar. There, Bindya (Deepshikha Nagpal) saves Gauri from what had been done to her. To stop her from doing so, Brijwa humiliates her in public, before stabbing her with a knife. Shankar is found and saved by a village boy who brings him to and his grandfather (a healer (Rammohan Sharma)), who operates on his throat while he is still unconscious. The healer, who discovers that Shankar is not mute by birth, is able to repair some of the damaged nerves in Shankar's throat, enabling him to speak.

While recovering, Shankar recalls that when he was a boy, his father Haria (Vikas Anand) discovered diamonds in the coal mine (where Raja was a simple shift manager), however, he and his wife were murdered in front of Shankar by two mysterious men (Dilawar (Ranjeet) & Ranbir (Jack Gaud)); when young Shankar threatened to tell his parents' colleagues what they did, someone came up from behind him and shoved hot coals into his throat, rendering him mute. Raja, who had known Shankar's parents, ordered the police to kill those men, but unknown to everyone, Shankar included, the police led by the DIG only pretended to kill the men while Raja adopted Shankar. Meanwhile Brijwa kills Bindya at the brothel and abducts Gauri. Shankar recovers and returns, first, he fights and kills Brijwa and is reunited with Gauri after rescuing her from the same men that killed his parents (who are now Raja's business partners), and bought Gauri from the brothel, killing Ranbir in the process. Simultaneously, Shankar discovers that Raja was the person who made him mute and who ordered his parents to be killed so he could steal their wealth. In the meantime, he reunites with Raja's doctor and son who believed him dead.

With Gauri's help, he kills Dilawar and then reveals the crimes of Raja to Raja's coal miners, at which Gauri arrives with her uncle (Suresh Chatwal) and aunt (Shubha Khote) forcing them to admit their involvement in making her marry Raja. Raja's doctor and his son turn against Raja, notifying everyone that Raja not only deceived Gauri but has been responsible for numerous killings as well as sexual assaults before ordering everyone to throw rocks at him and his men although Raja is able to shoot a few of the workers as well as his doctor in the arm.

In the chaos, the DIG scares everyone away by throwing grenades but is killed by Shankar, who then chases and finally manages to fight and corner Raja, who begs for his life, trying to give Shankar reasons for why he should live by pointing out that he adopted him and saved his life, but Shankar disregards this by counterpointing that Raja had adopted him to make him a slave and after dodging a pickax thrown at him by Raja kills the evil man by spilling oil and coal around Raja and through that setting him on fire with a burning rock. At last, Shankar and Gauri embrace each other, finally at peace.