Raju Mathur (Shahrukh Khan) is a young engineering graduate from Darjeeling who comes to Bombay with only one ambition - to become a big engineer. In Bombay, he arrives in a lower middle-class locality in search of a distant relative, only to discover he has left years before. He spends the night at a temple, where he meets a philosophical streetside performer Jai (Nana Patekar), who becomes a close friend and gives him a place to stay.

With no connections and no experience, he finds it hard to get a job in the city until a beautiful girl Renu (Juhi Chawla), finds him a job as a trainee with the construction company where she works as a secretary to Chabbria (Navin Nischol). They eventually fall in love with each other.

As he becomes successful he gets the attention of Chhabria's daughter Sapna (Amrita Singh). They spend more and more time together and he soon gets caught up in the rich and glamourous life style. Sapna has fallen in love with Raju but when she finds out that he loves Renu she is heartbroken.

In the mean time Raju's enemies are conspiring against him and they collapse a bridge which was under Raju's supervision. He gets the blame and soon realises that the glamourous world of the rich is not what he wants...