AllMovie

A little boy with precarious health is living with his grandfather in a small village in northeastern India, not far from Burma. The boy's mother died in childbirth, and his father was someone who was never interested in anything but a brief fling -- and certainly not any progeny. When a teacher comes to the village looking for work, the grandfather asks her to tutor his grandson. As she does so, she learns the identity of his father -- it is the man who married her cousin. Because she likes the boy so much, she brings her cousin to meet him, and the two -- cousin and little boy -- take an instant liking to each other. Their mutual affection is so strong that the cousin takes the little boy home to live with her one day when her husband is away on a trip. She is well aware that her husband fathered the boy, but it does not matter, she cares for him as though he were her own child. The two, adopted mother and adopted son, begin to develop a solid relationship by the time the father comes back and finds out what has happened. He does not recognize his son, of course, and no one tells him the truth. He wants to throw the boy out of the house, and the grandfather also wants to take the boy back. It will take great strength for the new mother to stand up to these two men and defend the bonds that have developed between herself and the boy.