Considered Ghatak’s masterpiece, this powerful and innovative melodrama revolves around a refugee family from East Bengal, victims of the Partition, who struggle for survival on the outskirts of Calcutta. Ghatak captures the complex play of creative and destructive forces at work in the attempt of each family member to survive. At the center of this domestic tragedy is the self-sacrificing Neeta, the family’s eldest daughter and provider for all, who struggles away at her job in the city. Closer to home, an elder brother practices to become a singer, while a younger one turns to factory work. The father realizes the worthlessness of his liberal education in a modern world that has no place for Yeats or Milton and no regard for the ideals of nineteenth-century Bengali liberalism.