Mampu watches her father struggling to keep his single-screen theatre alive - as her hometown Allahabad acquires a new name and starts losing traces of its past.

Set in the 90s, seventeen-year-old Vivek is sent away from home to attend a rigorous program to prepare for the highly competitive IIT entrance exams. Over two years, Vivek goes through the motions of Indian adolescence, but it is his parents who do the growing up.