A professor in Kolkata marries a young woman. But when he learns that she is pregnant with someone else's child, he decides to leave her.

When a Dalit wins the elections for mayor in his small village in northeastern India, deadly rioting forces an impoverished couple to escape to Calcutta where they can hopefully find work. Instead, they end up sleeping on the streets until they have a chance at earning a little income -- a man has asked them to take his herd of pigs across a fast-moving river. The current is dangerous, and worse, the wife is pregnant and this would not be an easy task even if she were not. Undaunted and desperate, the couple accept the job and enter the river to face their destiny.