- When the son of a landlord decides to modernize his business by replacing the horse carts with buses, a horse cart rider decides to challenge him.
- Shankar lives in a remote village in rural India with his mother and sister, Manju, and drives a horse-carriage for a living. The main employer in the region is a kind-hearted businessman Maganlal. When Maganlal announces that he would like to undertake a religious pilgrimage, his son, Kundan, takes over and wants to cut back on labor and mechanize the business - thus leading to loss in jobs. He also introduces a bus thus taking away business from the horse-carriage drivers. This angers the community and they ask Kundan to reconsider, and he flats refuses - but agrees to withdraw the bus provided Shankar races it with his horse-carriage. Watch the action unfold as Shankar unites a divided village, and how he sets about to keep his faith in winning this race between man and machine.—rAjOo (gunwanti@hotmail.com)
- The film is set in post-independence India, where industrialization is slowly creeping in. The focus is on Tongawallahs who earn their living transporting people on Tongas (horse carts). Shankar (Dilip Kumar) is a hard working Tongawalla living a peaceful life with sister Manju (Chand Usmani) and mother (Leela Chitnis). Krishna (Ajit) is a forest logger and Shankar's best friend. He works in the forest on daily wages. Manju secretly loves Krishna.. Seth Maganlal (Nazir Hussain) is a wealthy socialist who running the forest logging unit. He is kind towards the men who work in his forests and doesn't want them to go out of work. Maganlal leaves for Kashi for his retirement and is sent off with love.
Soon Rajni (Vyjayantimala) arrives in the community with her mother Durga Mausi (Pritima Devi). Shankar and Krishna both fall in love with Rajni.. But Rajni falls in love with Shankar. The town gets their forest jolt when the son of a Maganlal, Kundan (Jeevan) decides to install a wood cutting machine in his factory. By this, all loggers are safe from job losses, but all carpenters are out of work as machine operators are called in from the city.. Many jobs are lost, but the manual laborers are not able to say anything.. Shankar appeals to Kundan, but Kundan is firm in his decision and Shankar ends up fighting verbally with Kundan, Eventually all carpenters have to leave town.
Calamity befalls when Manju's engagement is broken up the grooms side on account of dowry, Shankar forces the groom's father to admit this in front of the Panchayat and then proceed to break the engagement himself. Shankar plans to marry Manju off to Krishna. Shankar speaks to Krishna who says that he also loves Rajni. They decide that the color of flowers that Rajni offers Shiva the next day decides whom she goes to. Manju, who loves Krishna, overhears this and switches the flowers so Rajni goes to Shankar. Krishna sees this and thinks Shankar put Manju up to this. Both friends fight bitterly on this account.
Then, on Krishna's suggestion, Kundan begins operating a bus service in the town, which he subsidizes heavily with the sole intention of first driving the Tongawallahs out of the town and then making a profit. Shankar petitions Kundan over this injustice. Kundan proposes a competition to decide which service is the best: the bus or the Tonga. It is decided that there will be a race between the vehicles. If the bus wins, the Tongawallahs will not complain further. If the Tonga wins, the bus service will stop. This competition was a farce from the start, since nobody could dream that a horse cart could beat a machine. Shankar, however, accepts the challenge to everybody's surprise. His logic is that they would be driven to starvation if the bus service continues. This race at least gives them an opportunity to try to do something.
The rest of the Tongawallahs do not share his hope. They blame him for his foolishness. Shaknar plan is to construct a road on a dirt path which is 6 miles shorter than the bus route and that is his plan to beat the bus. But he is left alone to fend for himself as the Tongawallas refuse to help. Rajni joins him. Soon the Tongawallas join Shankar as they see no hope for any income till the bus is in service. The road makes great progress. They even construct a small bridge across a drain. Kundan and Krishna team up to plant a bomb under the bridge, but are thwarted by an alert Rajni who throws the bomb away, but is injured in the process. Then Kundan bribes the priest to plant an idol in the road's path. The simple villagers now want to construct a temple there. Shankar works with his other village rival to plan another short cut through his land for the betterment of the entire village. The road is complete. The night before the race, Krishna sneaks in and cuts the foot of the bridge. Majnu sees him. Manju tells Krishna that she loves him and that's why she switched the flowers.
Just before the race Maganlal returns and scolds Kundan for stealing the jobs of his villagers and wants him to find a path of win-win between man and machine. The race goes ahead when Shankar insists. Krishna supports the bridge with his own body till Shankar passes over it. Shankar wins the race. Krishna hugs Shankar and marries Manju.
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