A young student in pre-Independence Dacca, Ranajit Dutta is relatively untouched by the patriotic fervour gripping the rest of the country. He is suffocated by and often critical of, the constricted environment and superstition ridden society he lives in. He seeks an escape through poetry and his search for the embodiment of universal womanhood. But one event shakes up his idealism and fundamentally changes his relationships with the women in his life: his first love Mitu Bardhan; his affectionate but neglected aunt Kajol; his revolutionary friend Bulbul; his naive, adoring wife Nalini.