The Citizen

Ramu, a fresh graduate, is searching for a job like many others in post-Partition Kolkata. He lives in a lower-middle-class neighborhood with his mother, father, and sister. Ramu's sister, Seeta, is dressed up and paraded in front of prospective in-laws who humiliatingly examine her. The mother is yearnful of older times when the family used to live in a better house, but she bears her suffering quietly, for the most part. The father is myopic and full of cynicism for he does not share the idealistic aspirations of his two children that better times will come. The light of Ramu's life is his girlfriend Uma, who lives in an equally precarious situation with her sister Shephali and her mother. Jatin is an even poorer minor character living near Uma's dwelling who Ramu avoids because he cannot help the former out financially. To make ends meet, Ramu's mother takes in Sagar, a poor chemist, as a paying guest.