Adapted from a novella by Rabindranath Tagore, Char Adhyay captures the ideals of the Bengali Renaissance of the 1930s. A group of young intellectuals and revolutionaries, led by the brilliant young Indranath, is fighting for independence from the colonial system. Ela, the group's emancipated muse and teacher is troubled by her romantic love for the poet Attindra who - like her - doubts the cruelty of revolutionary acts sanctioned by Indranath's ideals. Kumar Shahani draws on Indian visual arts, music and dance, to explore relationships between literature and politics, love and revolution, during this important period of cultural synthesis and change in modern India. The film continues his attempts in creating a cinema in the tradition of the Indian epic following the footsteps of Ritwik Ghatak, his teacher