Faredoon Junglewalla, also known as Freddy was a strikingly handsome man with a soft and pleasant voice. In his youth , he had come to Lahore with his family including wife, daughter and mother in law as a penniless man. In Lahore , he started a store and soon established himself as a successful businessman. His manly bearing and soft-spoken manners quickly found their way into Punjabi hearts. There had always been a thorn in his flesh. It was his mother in law , Jerbanoo who was a constant source of worry for him. She did everything to disturb him.
Having sick of her, he visited a mystic who asked him to bring a strip of her hair. When Freddy tried to cut her hair, she woke up and slapped Freddy in the face. Freddy actual intentions could not be known at that time however he remained successful in frightening her. Seeing the sensitivity of matters, Putli stopped the tyrannies of her mother and took over the charge of home. Now Jerbanoo found another point to bother Freddy. She would often initialise the topic of death and talked about that till Freddy began to feel awed and frightened.
An insurance officer visits the Parsi community in Lahore. Freddy gets his valuables insured with him. Later he hit a plan to win the insurance money. According to this plan, Freddy saves the valuables of his store in a warehouse and sets the fire to his store to claim for the insurance money. He remains successful and gets a handsome amount from the insurance company. After the episode of fire, Jerbanoo changed and stopped creating problems for Freddy. Years went by. Freddy expanded his business and after getting the money from insurance company, he had never looked back.
On a hot summer morning, Freddy finds some salt in the drinking water. It was an indication that someone from the family wanted to get married. He made inquiries from his elder son, Soli and daughter Yasmin. They were both not interested in marriage at that time. However , soon his other son Yazdi approaches him with the desire to marry his class fellow , an Anglo Indian girl Rosy Watson. Freddy could not allow him marrying outside the community. So he clearly refused to allow Yazdi to marry Rosy.
Yazdi , who is shown as an over sensitive boy is upset at the decision of his father. Later when he finds that Rosy is a part time prostitute , his world staggers and he turns into an overly generous boy who wants to leave every luxury and is eager to spend everything on beggars. He takes his share from the family money , leaves home and gets himself busy in spending the monthly profits on beggars. From a Brahmin Gopal Krishnan , Freddy learns that his elder son, Soli will die in three months. The news worries Freddy very much. He does everything to escape the tragedy but remains unable to change the fate. Soli dies at the said date. This changes Freddy altogether. He starts to take interest in religion. The whole responsibility of business falls to the shoulders of Billy who is a thrifty and miserly person. Billy has been conscious about money right from the days of his childhood.
An advertisement is printed in the newspapers to find a match for Billy. Out of hundreds of letters received in response of the advertisement one from Easymoney’s is selected and Billy goes to Bombay with his mother Putli and his grandmother Jerbanoo to see the girl Roshan. In Bombay , Billy falls in love with Roshan’s sister Tanya. After a mild twist in the story, marriage between Billy and Tanya is settled and both are married in a grand luxurious style. The junglewallas leave Bombay four days after the wedding and take with them all of considerable luggage of Tanya while the married couple goes to Simla for honeymoon. After honeymoon when Billy and Tanya arrive Lahore, they are taken to a new house which is gifted by Faredoon to the newly wed couple. A staff has already been engaged. Billy has tears of gratitude in his eyes. Putli and Jerbanoo make problems for Tanya who at last complains Freddy about them. Freddy as a result announces to take Putli and Jerbanoo to London for a six month visit.
In all their life, Putli and Jerbanoo have been impressed by their English rulers. But when in England , they see them as a common men and women, all their ideals about them shatter and break. Jerbanoo takes a revenge of this breakage from Mary, the wife of their host, Charles P Allen. She taunts her, pokes her nose in every matter of her and soon makes it unbearable for her to entertain them. The things get worse and they have to leave the house of Allen and to shift into a hotel. In hotel , Jerbanoo creates a fuss by unlawfully taking bath in the balcony. The man living under Jerbanoo’s room complaints to the management and they inturn go to Freddy. At this , Freddy decide to return to Lahore.
Tanya has had a hard time during the absence of Putli and Jerbanoo. She give birth to a boy. Freddy sees in this boy the image of his dead son, Soli. The event brings on the last phase of Faredoon’s life. He loses his sense of challenge and striving and is consent to leave the entire management of his business to Billy. He devotes himself to self -sacrificing deeds. In the month of June , at the age of sixty five , Faredoon falls ill and he knows his days are over and his end is near. In the last scene, he tells his children that if the country faces a partition, they will side with the rulers and the object of their lives will always be to obey the rulers and find the ways of their survival.
