Seventeen-year-old Rohan is expelled from the Bishop Cotton School (Shimla) boarding school in Shimla with three friends (Vikram, Benoy and Maninder) after they are seen watching an adult film off campus. Rohan returns home to Jamshedpur, his stern, abusive, alcoholic father, and his six-year-old half-brother Arjun (about whom Rohan had not known). His father forces him to run every morning (racing him the last leg), work at his father's metalworking factory and attend engineering classes at the local university; he expresses his disappointment in his son with abuse (verbal and physical) and humiliation. Rohan's uncle supports his ambition to become a writer.