Aparna Sen, whose debut was the highly successful 36 Chowringhee Lane, followed with this drama that deals, with rare depth and a fresh perspective, with a woman's adultery. Parama, eloquently played by Raakhee Gulzar, is a forty-year-old married woman who falls in love with an expatriate photojournalist doing a piece on sedate middle-class housewives such as herself for a glossy magazine. When the affair becomes public, family members conspire to drive Parama into a botched suicide attempt and nervous breakdown. Parama's recovery becomes the subject of the film, as she asserts herself in the face of institutionalized guilt and refuses psychiatric treatment. One Indian critic wrote, "The aesthetic beauty of Parama lies in its unraveling many layers of human complexity with infinite compassion....The growth of human relationship is accompanied by a tender unfolding of the inner psyche...and the search for the long-forgotten flower."