In the 1990s’ Allahabad, a brash college student gets drawn into an uproar surrounding a critical bill that will affect India’s education system.

After a chance phone call leads to daily conversations, a widowed restaurant owner and a lonely film actor plan to finally meet in person.

Four lives intersect along the Ganges: a low caste boy in hopeless love, a daughter ridden with guilt of a sexual encounter ending in a tragedy, a hapless father with…