In the late 1910s, in the quiet village of Nischindipur, Harihar Roy earns a meagre living as a pujari, yet nourishes a bright dream of poetry and thestage. His wife, Sarbajaya Ray, holds the family together while caring for their children, Durga Ray and Apurba "Apu" Kumar Ray, along with Harihar’s aging cousin, Indir Thakrun. With scarce resources, the household strains under the weight of an unsettled life, and Sarbajaya grows increasingly resentful of sharing what little remains with Indir.
Durga Ray forms a warm, almost mentor-like bond with Indir Thakrun, often bringing her fruit from a wealthy neighbor’s orchard. A fragile equilibrium teeters when the neighbor’s wife accuses Durga of stealing a bead necklace, and Sarbajaya is blamed for encouraging such mischief. Durga denies the theft, but the accusation wounds the family, foreshadowing the deeper fragility of their world.
The story unfolds through small, intimate joys that tether the family to possibility. Durga’s affection for Apu shines as she and her brother chase fleeting delights: sitting under a tree and studying pictures in a traveling bioscope, running after the candy man who wanders through, and watching a jatra, a lively folk theatre, that momentarily lifts their spirits. Every evening, the distant whistle of a train brings a quiet ache for something beyond the village’s borders, a reminder of the wider world awaiting them.
Tensions within the home intensify. Sarbajaya’s resentment toward Indir grows sharper, and Indir eventually seeks temporary refuge with another relative. A pivotal moment arrives when Durga and Apu race to glimpse the train, only to learn that Indir, unwell, has died back home during their absence.
With the village’s prospects dwindling, Harihar Roy journeys to the city in search of steadier work. He promises to return with money to repair their crumbling house, but the return comes later than expected, and the family sinks deeper into poverty. The monsoon season batters their home, and Durga goes out to play in the rain, catching a cold that quickly turns into a high fever as a thunderstorm pounds the crumbling walls.
Durga’s illness deepens, and she dies the next morning, leaving a silence that nothing in the village can quite fill. When Harihar Roy finally returns, carrying the modest goods from the city, Sarbajaya collapses at his feet, overwhelmed by grief and the loss of their daughter. The family resolves to leave their ancestral home for Benaras, seeking a fresh start away from shrinking horizons.
As they prepare to depart, Apurba "Apu" Kumar Ray discovers the necklace Durga had earlier denied stealing and, with a conflicted gesture, treks it to a pond, where he tosses it away—an act that marks a desire to bury the past as they head toward an uncertain future. The ox-cart ride out of the village is shadowed by a final, eerie image: a snake slipping into the now-barren house, a small, unsettling emblem of the family’s shattered fortunes and the long road that lies ahead.
