In 1938 India, Chuyia, an eight-year-old girl, finds her life upended when her husband dies shortly after their wedding. In keeping with the harsh traditions surrounding widowhood, she is dressed in a white sari, her head is shaved, and she is sent to an ashram to live out her days in renunciation. The dilapidated house shelters fourteen other women who are there to expiate bad karma and to ease their families of the emotional and financial burden of caring for widows. The ashram is ruled by Madhumati, a pompous woman in her seventies, whose grip on the residents is absolute. Her only friend is Gulabi, a hijra who keeps Madhumati supplied with cannabis and has a side business: Gulabi helps Madhumati prostitute Kalyani, a beautiful young widow, by ferrying her across the Ganges to paying customers, a fate Kalyani Lisa Ray was forced into as a teenager to sustain the ashram.
Shakuntala, perhaps the most enigmatic of the women, is attractive, witty and sharp, yet deeply conflicted. She is among the few widows who can read, and her anger is such that even Madhumati leaves her alone. Shakuntala, Seema Biswas, walks a fine line between devotion to God and a raw, unyielding hatred of her circumstances. She seeks counsel from Sadananda, a compassionate priest who helps her see the injustice of her situation. Through her, Chuyia begins to form a fragile bond, and Shakuntala’s presence becomes a quiet beacon in the chaotic world of the ashram.
Chuyia gradually adapts to life within the walls, forming a friendship with Kalyani and bearing witness to Kalyani’s budding romance with Narayan, John Abraham, a charming upper-class follower of Mahatma Gandhi. Despite initial reluctance, Kalyani succumbs to Narayan’s dream of a new life and marriage in Calcutta, trusting that love and a fresh start could redeem her past. The couple’s plan to flee is jeopardized when Chuyia unintentionally reveals their affair to Madhumati, who sees a new source of income slipping away and is furious at the social shame she would face.
Against all expectations, Shakuntala interferes and frees Kalyani to meet Narayan. He ferries her across the river toward his home, but when Kalyani reaches the bungalow and recognizes its true nature, she realizes that Narayan is the son of one of the men she has been forced to sleep with. This discovery shakes him to his core: disgusted, he confronts his father and chooses to walk away, deciding to join Mahatma Gandhi’s broader movement. He eventually arrives back at the ashram to take Kalyani with him, only to discover that she has drowned herself, a tragic consequence of the world she could not escape.
In the wake of Kalyani’s death, Madhumati orders Chuyia to be prostituted as a replacement, a cruel reminder of the system’s dehumanizing logic. Shakuntala’s maternal instinct drives her to intervene, but she cannot prevent the worst from happening. When she finally finds Chuyia, the child is deeply traumatized and catatonic. Cradling Chuyia, Shakuntala spends the night by the river’s edge. As Gandhi’s movement gathers momentum and people flock to the train station to hear him speak, Shakuntala shoulders the burden of hope for a better world. She joins the crowd, seeking a blessing for the girl she has come to protect. The train pulls away, and in a desperate act, Shakuntala runs alongside it, urging strangers to take Chuyia with them. She spots Narayan on the train and hands Chuyia to him, watching as the carriages disappear into the distance, leaving behind a tearful Shakuntala and a child whose fate has become entwined with a larger struggle for dignity and change.
