Maa Behen

In Adarsh Colony, Rekha is an outspoken, beautiful widow, but notorious in the neighborhood for reasons that may have more to do with the male residents’ imaginations than reality. She lives alone, having raised two daughters; Jaya, now married in Patna to the entitled Manas, and Sushma, a social-media influencer living with Jaya after a viral kissing-video scandal forced Rekha to pretend to disown her.

One night, Rekha’s neighbor Charitra Kumar Gupta, the colony’s pious, self-appointed moral guardian discovers that Rekha has embezzled funds from the wine shop where she works, which he helps manage. When he threatens to report her, she invites him over on the pretext of playing cards to plead for time. Gupta misreads the invitation, barges in and attempts to assault her. In the ensuing struggle, she pushes him away; he crashes into furniture, hits his head on a grinding stone and is knocked unconscious. Believing him to be dead, a panicked Rekha calls both of her daughters home at two in the morning.

Rekha proposes to dump the body in the nearby canal, but while dragging it, the women discover Gupta is still alive. Fearing he will report her embezzlement if he wakes, Rekha decides to keep him tied up and sedated with cough syrup for two days long enough to quietly replace the stolen money and eliminate his leverage.

What should have been a simple waiting game spirals out of control. Gupta’s wife comes looking for her missing husband amidst their daughter Goldie's wedding celebrations. Manas arrives unannounced from Patna, suspicious of Jaya’s sudden disappearance. Sushma’s long-absent biological father, who is revealed to be a conman who poses as an army officer, reappears demanding money, while a ransom demand arrives by phone; five-and-a-half lakh rupees for Gupta’s “kidnapped” safe return, addressed to his family. Each woman suspects the others of making the call, and years of simmering resentment, Jaya’s shame over Rekha’s scandalous reputation, Sushma’s feeling of being the unwanted second daughter, Rekha’s loneliness and desperation; boil over in a vicious three-way confrontation.

Jaya, emboldened by the chaos, finally stands up to Manas, revealing that she had to marry him just to preserve her image. She declares that she knows about his infertility, and has been counting every persecution she was subjected to, after which she throws him out. She further reprimands him for misbehaving with Sushma and demands a divorce on her own terms.

Gupta eventually regains consciousness and stumbles home. Rather than let the matter drop, he tries to blackmail the women, threatening to file a criminal complaint unless Rekha surrenders her house to him. He returns to Rekha’s home, demands she massage and serve him, and attempts to humiliate all three women.

The trio decide to fight back; they drug Gupta, photograph him in a compromising state, and threaten to post the images on social media. His own wife discovers him half-dressed in Rekha’s bedroom, destroying his credibility. When he still threatens an FIR, Rekha publicly re-enacts the night’s events, framing everything as self-defense against his attempted assault, daring him to expose his own predatory behavior to the colony.

Months later, Rekha, Jaya and Sushma, are watching television, when they discover that the ransom caller was Goldie, who had secretly saved the same amount over years to flee her arranged marriage and audition for a singing reality show. Having seen her father enter Rekha’s house that night, she seized the opportunity to replenish her drained savings. The film ends with Goldie performing on national television under her real name, Hema, while Rekha, Jaya and Sushma walk away from the colony’s judgment; bruised, but united.