Circa British Rule in India, a man vows to make his only surviving son, Narayan, alias Nani, a Brahmachari to atone for the deaths of five of his children. He takes this child to a remote village in Karnataka, South India, where he leaves his 11 year old son in the care of a learned Archarya, Udup Pandit. Here Nani gets to meet two other disciples of the Archarya, as well as his widowed daughter, Yamuna, and another male by the name of Shrikar Upadhyay, who also teaches the British how to read and write in Hindi. The Archarya goes away for a few days, and when he returns nothing is the same anymore. His daughter is pregnant, the villagers are all set to remove her from the village, they are also angry with him for refusing Yamuna to follow the traditional way of a Hindu widow.

Suraj falls in love with Kiran and doesn't know that she is the daughter of an underworld kingpin. Suraj's life takes a drastic turn when the same criminal kills his father.

A taxi driver with a tragic past sees an opportunity for redemption when he encounters a woman sold into prostitution. Wanting to help her escape, he has to deal with the wrath of the brothel madam.

A retired professor, Lagoo, suddenly disappears one day. His family is worried especially when he doesn’t return after months, and then years. His wife, children and friends, then try to remember him through reconstructed memory, providing the film’s flashback structure. Some critics saw this as Mrinal Sen’s most personal film. As Sen said: “Life didn’t stop even for a moment. It carried on. But his family – his wife, his children – keep looking back, into the past. Each constantly reconstructs the man in their own minds, aided by fragments of memory. That man and I, that man and you, that man and the rest of us…one among many. “…Believe me, irrespective of who you are and how talented you may be, you are possessed of mediocrity. The minute you are conscious of this within you, your ‘crisis’ deepens. This is the thought that prompted the film. And perhaps the greatest tragedy in man’s life is that he has only that one life.” Winner Best Supporting Actress, President’s Award, India, 1989