Aparajito - Plot

Plot

The film begins with Apu's family getting settled in an apartment close to a ghat in Benares. Here Apu (Pinaki Sengupta) makes new friends. While his mother Sarbajaya (Karuna Banerjee) stays at home, his father Harihar (Kanu Banerjee) works as a priest. On a Diwali day, Harihar develops a fever and rests, as Apu comforts him. The next day, he leaves for his work as usual towards the ghat, ignoring his wife's advice to rest. While coming back to home, he collapses on the stairs of the ghat, and dies soon afterwards.

In Harihar's absence, it becomes Sarbajaya's responsibility to earn money for the family. She starts working as a maid. A relative invites them to return to their ancestral village in Dewanpur (in Rajshahi Division, modern-day Bangladesh). They settle in a village called Mansapota. Apu asks his mother to send him to a school. Apu studies diligently and receives a scholarship to go to Calcutta (now Kolkata). Sarbajaya does not want to let her son leave. She gives in and helps him prepare to leave.

Apu (Smaran Ghosal) starts working at a printing press after school. Sarbajaya expects visits from him, but Apu manages to visit only a few times and feels out of place in Mansapota. Sarbajaya becomes seriously ill, but does not disclose her illness to Apu. One day while waiting for him, she hears his voice at the doorstep and goes to see him, but finds only the noise of monkeys in the trees and a pond of fireflies as she begins fainting. When Apu finally comes to know about her poor health, he leaves for the village and finds that she has already died. A relative requests him to stay back there and to work as a priest. Apu rejects the idea. He returns to Calcutta and performs the last rites for his mother there.