巴汉宝（Prasenjit Sarka 饰）知道自己并不是一个成功的男人，他不仅要赡养妻儿，还要负责父母的养老，一大家子人将日子过得抠抠搜搜。为了补贴家用，巴汉宝的妻子阿拉提（贾雅·巴杜里 Jaya Bhaduri 饰）不得不外出打工赚钱，哪知道聪慧热情的阿拉提一下子就在职场获得了认可，事业经营的有声有色，虽然家里的经济情况因此而有所缓解，但巴汉宝的心里十分的不是滋味，妻子在外面抛头露面如鱼得水，让他觉得自己脸上无光。
某日，巴汉宝因为一场意外而丢掉了工作，彻底沦为家里蹲，他和妻子之间的平衡被彻底的发破了，夫妻之间的关系濒临崩溃的边缘。

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

The first story is about Nanda, a young man who leaves Calcutta to work as a postmaster in an isolated malaria-infested village. The postmaster is looked after by a young orphan girl, Ratan. His only solace in the village is in teaching Ratan how to read and write. The second story is about a student, Amulya, who returns to his village after finishing his exams. His widowed mother is very anxious for him to marry, and has already picked out a girl. He rejects his mother's choice and, being forced to choose some girl, marries a lively tomboy who is not ready to give up her freedom.