Satyajit Ray Productions

Apu and his family have moved away from the country to live in the bustling holy city of Benares. As he progresses from wide-eyed child to intellectually curious teenager, eventually studying in Kolkata, we witness his academic and moral education, as well as the growing complexity of his relationship with his mother.

Apu, now a jobless ex-student dreaming vaguely of a future as a writer, is invited to join an old college friend on a trip up-country to a village wedding.

Three stories with three central female characters linking the stories together. The first one concerns an orphan girl who grows attached to the postmaster she is caring for after he teaches her to read and write. The second one is a supernatural tale about a woman obsessed with the jewels her husband buys for her. The final one follows a young man who falls for an unconventional girl from his new village instead of his arranged bride, the daughter of a respectable family.

When a wealthy patriarch falls ill on his 70th birthday, three of his sons rush in from Calcutta, leading to a reunion filled with painful ironies and lingering disillusionment. As the family—including an addled fourth son who lives with the old man—watches and waits, the static occasion brings out simmering tensions in their family dynamics, from the father’s moral rectitude to the business ambition of two sons and the withdrawal of their siblings.