The harvest is good, but the big landlord and the grain dealer from the city refuse to pay a fair price for it. The price of rice has gone up in the city, with the British drawing on reserves of grain for the war effort. But old Samaddar is unable to comprehend why he should be paid a pittance for his year's toil while the landlord and the grain dealer are obviously out to make a fast buck. For Ramu, life with his newly wedded wife starts on an ominous note of impending poverty. There is not even a grain to offer to the gods when his child is born.
Natural calamities follow and famine takes over the land.
Selling off their land, the villagers leave one by one in the hope of a better life in the city. Old Samaddar's family still hang on to their land while starvation casts its grim shadow over them. Ramu quarrels with his brother and leaves for Calcutta. Finally the rest of the family too decide to go to the city along with a caravan of hungry peasants. But the city is the death of all hopes for them, for it has no place for the starving people who throng there from the countrysides of Bengal.