The scene is set in Kashmir, in the northernmost part of India, where the great Indus River meanders. Kamala, the granddaughter of Maharaja Chandra Kumar, the powerful viceroy of Benares, is promised to become the chief lady-in-waiting of the daughter of Goyar, the Grand Duke of Delhi. She falls in love with Cavalry Captain Rachman, who hails from a farmer’s household. Her amour with the captain, however, is strongly opposed to by her grandfather, grandmother, and her aunts, on the grounds that the young lovers are too vastly separated in their respective social position.