One evening, in the midst of torrential rains, a professor (Shreeram Lagoo) goes out for a walk and fails to return. As the evening stretches into days and the days into weeks with no sign of him, his family struggles to regain their footing and to understand what might have caused him to leave. Slowly they return to their daily activities. The professor's son Amit (Arjun Chakraborty) establishes his fledgling business; his younger daughter Sima (Roopa Ganguly) resumes her studies at college; and his elder daughter, Neeta (Shabana Azmi), the backbone of the family, returns to her office job.

Behind the facade of normalcy, though, the family is deeply wounded. Amit enjoys success in his business but is bitter and dour. Neeta has a very patient and supportive boyfriend (Anjan Dutt), but the relationship is stuck in a holding pattern. And their mother (Uttara Baokar) suffers debilitating depression. Their hesitant attempts to piece together the professor's state of mind before his disappearance raise more questions than they answer: Was he having an affair with a former student (Aparna Sen)? Was his academic career crumbling? Was he a plagiarist?

• Shabana Azmi - Neeta
• Shreeram Lagoo - Professor (Neeta's father)
• Aparna Sen - Student
• Uttara Baokar - Neeta's mother
• Roopa Ganguly - Seema (Neeta's sister)
• Arjun Chakraborty - Neeta's brother
• Manohar Singh - Neeta's uncle
• Anjan Dutt - Neeta's boyfriend
• Lily Chakravarty - Neighbour
• Anil Chatterjee - Arunbabu

• 1989: National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress: Uttara Baokar
• 1989: Venice Film Festival: OCIC Award - Honorable Mention: Mrinal Sen