In this film Ghatak plays role of Nilkantha Bagchi, an alcoholic, disillusioned broken intellectual,[7] in the character's own words "a humbug". His wife leaves him because of his insufferable alcoholism. After losing his wife and forced from his home, he wanders through the countryside and meets unusual folks along the way. He meets Bongobala, who is driven away from Bangladesh and does not have any shelter in Kolkata, he gives her shelter. He meets Jagannath Bhattacharjee, a village school teacher of Sanskrit. The school got closed after political killings and Jagannath came to Kolkata in search of job. He meets Naxalites whom he describes as "frame of Bengal", but misguided, successful and unsuccessful at the same time.