Vidya lives a middle-class lifestyle in a virtually lawless town called Amarpur, India, along with her widower and disabled dad, Shambhu; married brother, Shiva and his wife, Lata; and her paternal grandma. She studies in the Arts Commerce and Science college in Bombay, and is summoned home to get married to a man of her family's choice, to which she reluctantly agrees. On the day of the marriage, a dancer performs an item which angers Mahadev, who is the Mukhiya of Mandaur, another lawless town, where the groom hails from. Friction breaks out, guns are drawn, people are killed, and Amarpur's Mukhiya, Jawahar Pandit, decides to torch the harvest of Mandaur and flee. An angered Mahadev instructs Shiva to wipe the Sindoor from Vidya's forehead, make her live the life of a widow, and not permit her to re-locate to her husband until he avenges this humiliation.