Young Apu is growing into manhood in a Bengal village in India, as his parents struggle to provide him with food on a daily basis. Apu’s father Harihar Roy dreams of being a writer, but is stuck with the paltry earnings of a sometimes-priest. In addition to his father and mother, Apu shares his home with a sister, Durga, and his father’s aging cousin, Indir. Indir's presence has created a high level of tension and more than a little resentment from Apu’s mother, Sarbajaya, because the relative is not only old, but infirm and must be cared for as if she were a third child.
When Durga steals mangoes to give to Indir, Sarbajaya is enraged, and at one point kicks Indir out for encouraging her daughter's stealing. Indir returns the next day after staying with another relative. Tensions rise even more when a neighbor, a vindictive aunt, who is more economically stable, accuses Durga of stealing a necklace from her daughter.
Durga and Apu get into some playful fights, and Sarbajaya kicks Indir out of her house yet again, distressed by how much attention and care the old woman needs.
When Durga and Apu wander into a large field near their home, they notice a train passing by, as well as a large, humming electrical grid, both representing the changes of modernity. On their way back to the ancestral home, they find Indir, who was turned away by Sarbajaya, dead in the middle of the forest.
Desperate for work, Hari leaves his family to go in search of an income, leaving Sarbajaya, Durga, and Apu to fend for themselves. During her father's time away, Durga comes down with pneumonia after playing outside in a monsoon for too long. Soon she succumbs to the illness and dies. When Apu’s father returns home, he is upbeat and excitedly informs them of his success by handing out presents, including a beautiful sari he bought for Durga. Only then does he get the news of his daughter’s unexpected death, at which point the grief overwhelms him and he collapses.
Apu makes the decision that he must take the entire family to move near the river where he will have more professional prospects. As they are gathering their belongings and cleaning the house, Apu comes across the necklace that Durga denied stealing, which has been secreted away inside a bowl all this time.
Apu steals away to a nearby pond and tosses the necklace into it, watching as the weeds conceal its presence before joining his parents and the ox-cart which takes them away to their new life.
