The story of Sukhadi, a twelve-year-old Adivasi girl who makes a daily trip to a sleepy railway station to fetch water. This banal activity is transformed into an adventure by her chance meeting with Zainaab, a beautiful and mysterious, thirteen-year-old gypsy girl. Zainaab challenges Sukhadi to jump on to the old-fashioned narrow gauge train that takes holiday makers to Matheran on top of the mountain.

After destroying his older brother's motorbike in retaliation for his constant bullying, 11-year-old Krishna is sent to a traveling circus to earn money to pay for the bike's repairs, but soon winds up in the streets of Bombay's poorest slums. There, he befriends the drug dealer Chillum and young prostitute Sola Saal, while trying to make enough money at a neighborhood tea stall to repay his debt to his family.