Aseem is a denizen of Delhi who has visions of people from different time periods. In this way, he gets glimpses of the city as it was in the past and as it will be. He has no home in the city, instead roaming around and encountering the visions. Sometimes, he tries to influence the lives of those in the past, including an emperor who would be defeated by a Persian king. He tells visions of the British invaders that they are doomed. For his more interesting meetings, he takes notes in preparation for the history of the future he hopes to write.

One day, he follows a young girl who is a student at Delhi University. He thinks he sees death in her eyes. Following her into a bookshop, he watches as she buys a much-needed textbook. When she leaves, he presses through the crowd behind her. When he sees that she is standing in the path of an oncoming bus, he leaps toward her, pushing her out of the way. Helping her up, he hands her a business card detailing information that would help her find her purpose in life.

After helping the girl, Aseem contemplates his own story which begins when he is about to commit suicide on a bridge. A stranger comes up to him and yanks him off the ledge, handing him the same business card that he had given to the girl (though it was foreign to him at the time). Aseem follows in the instructions to Pandit Vidyanath’s office. The Pandit is unavailable, but his assistant, Om Prakash, offers to assist Aseem. Om Prakash uses a computer to offer Aseem a look into his future and his purpose, giving the latter a printout of a hazy image of a woman. Aseem cannot clearly make out the features, but Om Prakash insists that he will know the woman when he meets her. Since he has no other project to believe in, he clings to the thought of the mystery woman.

In the present, he meets a girl that he thinks resembles the printout’s image. She asks for directions and he offers them as well as his company. She agrees, but before they can set off, she disappears. Aseem realizes she was a vision and races to Om Prakash who tells him there is nothing to be done. Leaving the shop distressed, Aseem goes to the bus stop only to run into the girl he knocked out of the path of the bus. She also visited Om Prakash and received a printout of her own. She asks for his opinion of the image, but he cannot interpret it. She insists that she would not have killed herself that day, but Aseem knows that he saved her nonetheless.

He returns to the bridge where he almost died. He begins to climb onto the ledge, but a voice behind him stops him. He thinks he sees himself reflected in the man, but he disappears. It is enough to allow Aseem to refocus, and in hopes of finding a fellow soul to commiserate with, he decides to return to Om Prakesh to get the address of the girl he saved.