"Bombay" is the name of an ever expanding concrete jungle planted upon the debris of scores of old bulldozed 'bastis". One of such surviving old hamlet constitutes the backdrop of "Jaanam".
Shankar Rao (Paresh Rawal) the strong willed well accepted headman of an old sea-side settlement comes in direct clash with Dhanraj (Vikram Gokhale), a builder businessman, an equally strong diehard and a determined hot head. A mutual hatred of the two is an irreconcilable factor because of the inherent conflict of their economic interests. Dhanraj is determined to get the basti land at all costs, for the site was a good mine for an ambition builder like him. Shankar Rao, also is equally determined to save and defend the land of his forefathers.
Strangely enough, Dhanraj's young daughter Anjali (Pooja Bhatt) falls in love with Shankar Rao's young romantic son Amar (Rahul Roy). Their love blossoms in a climate of hatred. The two lovers are now equally determined to protect their love by defying their parents' unflinching hatred.
The result is catastrophic. The lovers lose the precious lives of their two brothers in the unrelenting unyielding hate war of the two fighting fathers. Shankar Rao is no left a broken man while Dhanraj develops into a maniac monster out to get Amar's life for he was the one who had inflicted untold miseries on his family. Amar, so Dhanraj thinks, was a pawn in the hands of Shankar Rao and the basti people to destroy the builder's lan of taking over the basti land. Amar was the person responsible for his son Rajan's death. Amar had to be physically eliminated any how.
Shankar Rao, under the conditions, finds himself helpless and weak and advises his son to run away to some far off place to save his life.
Amar now sees a total destruction of his love at the hands of the all powerful hands of hatred. He takes an important decision. At the risk of his life he ventures into Anjali's room to ask her to immediately run away with him to some unknown far off land where their love could blossom in a fresh air which is free from hatred.
It was a crucial decisive moment for Anjali. It was a life and death fight between love and hate and it all depend upon her whether their love stood up or succumbed. To go away with Amar or to leave him alone in the wilderness of wordly tortures, is the question. She had to immediately decide.
The question was answered by her amid an intense dramatic course of events which finally settled the fate of their love caught in a cross fire of a colliding hatred.
"Jaanam" is an eventful spell binding narrative of a young romance defying and fighting a hostile world of hatred and violence.
[From the official press booklet]