Charulata draws its substance on the novella Nashtanir (The Broken Nest) written by Rabindranath Tagore in 1901. The film unfolds around Charulata, the lonely wife. In her husband Bhupati's palatial Victorian mansion, Charu tries to fill her emptiness by peering through the louver windows with her opera glasses. Bhupati is an English educated colonial 'bhadralok' immersed in his own world, committed without respite towards the publication of his newspaper "The Sentinel", while Charu pines for his attention. He is a grand idealist and disciple of Raja Rammohan Roy, a champion of new enlightenment yet also more than a trifle naive.