The film, set in Mumbai, revolves around a mistaken delivery by the Dabbawalas (lunchbox service) of Mumbai, which leads to a relationship between Saajan, a lonely widower close to retirement, and Ila, an unhappy housewife, as they start exchanging notes through the daily lunchbox.

Ten vignettes in New York City: a pickpocket meets his match; a young Hasidic woman, on the eve of her marriage, reveals herself to an Indian businessman; a writer tries a pick-up line; an artist seeks a model; a composer needs to read; two women connect; a man takes a child to Central Park; lovers meet; a couple takes a walk on their anniversary; a kid goes to the prom with a girl in a wheelchair; a retired singer contemplates suicide. There are eight million stories in the naked city: these have been ten of them.

After the passing of his Pondicherry-born mentor, Susanna, Mumbai-based Dr. Arun Kumar Singh narrates his story to his wife, Nalini. With photographs from an old album that he has never shared with anyone, he informs her as to how Susanna caught him stealing; got him to quit his job & enrolled in a Panchgani school, as well as arranged for further education in St. Petersburg. While Susanna herself searched for true love and her marriages with six deceased men - including the abusive Major Edwin Rodrigies; drug-addicted and womanizer guitarist-singer Jamshed Singh Rathore; impotent and abusive Mohammad Wasiullah Khan; bigamist/spy Nicolai Vronski; Inspector Keemat Lal; and Dr. Modhusodon Tarafdar - men who influenced her life, broke her heart - and met with sudden and mysterious deaths.

Based in Budbuda, Uttar Pradesh, Billu Vilas Pardesi barely makes a living as a barber. His wife, Bindiya, looks after the household, and his children, Gunja and Ronak, are on the verge of being expelled from Gyaan Bharti Vidyalay Higher Secondary School due to non-payment of fees. Then everything changes when Bollywood actor Sahir Khan makes an appearance to film a movie in the town. Rumors spread that Billu is Sahir's close friends, and he becomes a celebrity virtually overnight. His shop gets donations and clientèle, and the school decides to educate his children for free. The trouble begins when townsfolk want to meet with Sahir but Billu is unable to contact him.

After being apprehended, detained, humiliated, and denied legal counsel by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Omar Ehzaz, originally from Delhi's Lajpatnagar, relates to the investigator, Roshan, assigned to his case, how he arrived in New York during 1999; his friendship with Samir Shaikh and Student Counselor, Maya; the events of September 11, 2001; the subsequent paranoia, fear, racial profiling, generated and aggravated by the tyrannical right-winged regime of George W. Bush, and how he came to be in possession of several Ak47s and plastic explosives that were confiscated from his taxi-cab.

While traveling by train to visit his grandfather in Jamshedpur, Calcutta born, Bengali-speaking Ashoke Ganguli meets with fellow-traveler, Ghosh, who impresses upon him to travel, while Ashoke is deep into a book authored by Nicholai Gogol. The train meets with an accident, and after recuperating, Ashoke re-locates to America, settles down, returns home in 1977 to get married to aspiring singer, Ashima, and returns home to New York. Shortly thereafter they become parents of a boy, who they initially name Gogol, and a few years later both give birth to Sonia. The family then buy their own house in the suburbs and travel to India for the first time after their marriage. The second time they travel to India is when Gogol and Sonia are in their late teens, and after a memorable visit to Kolkata and then to the Taj Mahal, they return home. Gogol falls in love with Maxine Ratliff and moves in with her family, while Ashoke spends time traveling, and Sonia moves to California, leaving Ashima...