Chunnan ‘Mirza’ Nawab (Amitabh Bachchan) is a stingy old ghar jamai who is regarded by most people he knows as a greedy miser. His wife, Fatima Begum (Farrukh Jaffar), who is 17 years older than him, is the owner of Fatima Mahal, a run-down mansion in Lucknow whose rooms are being leased out to various tenants, many of whom are not paying appropriate rent. Begum leaves Mirza with the responsibility of tending to the property, but Mirza cannot wait for Begum’s death, so the mansion can be passed down to him. Baankey Rastogi (Ayushmann Khurrana) is a poor tenant of the mansion who lives with his mother and three sisters. He owns a wheat mill shop, and consistently makes excuses and claims for why he can’t pay his long-overdue rent despite being charged even less than all the other tenants, much to Mirza’s chagrin.
As a result, Mirza nags him to pay his dues whenever they cross paths. This leads to Baankey getting frequently irritated, and in an outburst of anger, he starts a chaos by kicking the wall of a toilet block which collapses, thus angering Mirza, who demands Baankey pay the full cost of repair. Baankey, however, does not pay up, so Mirza attempts to make the lives of him and his family miserable, in every way possible. This is the last straw for Baankey, who vows to exact revenge on Mirza.
