Raisa lives with her Ammi and three younger sisters in Hyderabad's Old City. When Ammi promises her 13-year old daughter, Zainab, in marriage to a foreign businessman, Raisa decides to save her little sister at any cost.

In an old custom that has found new roots among poor families in Muslim ghettos, rich patrons pay for an arrangement brokered by efficient agents, while a pliant cleric draws up both marriage and divorce contracts simultaneously, so that the businessman is free to end the sham union whenever he is ready to leave the city.

Desperate to find a way out for Zainab, Raisa hatches a dangerous and improbable plan involving an archaic remedy that claims to restore a girl's virginity.