Shyamanand Jalan

Ravi, a wealthy model, leaves his father's business after unsatisfactory modeling work and returns to his parents' home to join struggle students and revolutionary Manohar.

In this rather routine, made-for-television movie by famed Indian director Mrinal Sen, an employee (K.K. Raina) in a large office is suddenly facing unemployment because his bosses have found him guilty of negligence. He is devastated, but he cannot lose his job since he is the only support of his family. Interspersed with the employee's efforts to convince his boss, in several different ways, that he cannot be fired are direct dialogues with the author (Shyamanand Jalan) who created the character of the employee. In these latter conversations, the employee berates his creator for giving him an impossible, no-win situation — he has no control over his fate.

The film is set in during the Emergency period in December 1975. Jadunath a labour union leader, of Jethia Jute Mill in Kolkata has been given death sentence, for the murders of owner Jethia’s brother, and another worker, even though he never committed them. Before dying, he pledges his eyes for donation. However when the mill owner finds about this he tries to manoeuvre the medical system to get both the eyes for his blind son. Meanwhile the doctor discovers that the donation papers provided by the Jethia to be fake. Soon the mill workers get united behind the widow of Jadunath and hold protest rally against the injustice.

Max, un jeune chirurgien américain, décide, après l'échec d'une opération, de renoncer à sa pratique et de partir en Inde. Là-bas, à Calcutta, devant la misère, il refuse dans un premier temps de s'impliquer, mais sa rencontre avec une famille fuyant la famine de la campagne va l'amener à se remettre en question. Il va alors découvrir la Cité de la Joie, un dispensaire au milieu des bidonvilles, ou malgré leurs problèmes, leur famine et leur misère, les indiens sont tous de même heureux de la simplicité de leurs vies.

The film is based closely on the life of the real-life Dada Thakur, and was made in his lifetime. Dada Thakur (Chhabi Biswas) starts his career with a hand-operated press, with his wife as his assistant. Later he is joined by Nalini Kanta Sarkar, an underground freedom-fighter. Dada Thakur brings out the newspaper Jangipur Sangbad. He campaigns against social evils and earns the ire of the ruling classes. He saves a girl, Lata, from the unwanted advances of Darpanarayan (Biswajeet), scion of the local zamindar. Lata joins the ranks of freedom fighters working with Sarkar. Subsequently, a reformed Darpanarayan too becomes an ardent follower of Dada Thakur and joins the struggle for India's freedom. Dada Thakur's greatest success is when he helps an ordinary man, a petty shopkeeper, get elected as the Municipal Commissioner of Jangipur.