The ballad of a restless jobless man

Pratidwandi (The Adversary, Siddharta and the City, Bengali; 1970)

Even though this is said to be the first of the Calcutta trilogy and supposed to have been released in 1970, it was re-released in 1972 with another name, hence the confusion and the two names.
It deals with social issues faced the city folks of Calcutta.
The scenario at the beginning may be familiar to viewers of Tamil cinema of the 80s where social issues were the mainstay of the day. Unemployment, joblessness and poverty was the order of the day. The hopelessness, however, was not so hopeless. Our protagonist still could afford cigarette and have a decent drink for themselves!
As many Calcutta city dwellers of the 70s, the hero Siddharta Chaudhry is unemployed. He had to cut short his medical studies after the untimely demise of his father and join the rows of youths attending interviews. He finds it difficult to gain employment. His political views, leaning to the left, is not helping in his interviews either. During an interview, when asked about greatest human achievement of the 60s, he chose the fighting spirit of Vietnamese over the moon expedition! (And justified it too!)
Incessant unwarranted advice from friends and elders stresses him up. He senses a hint of sarcasm among friends on the fact that his sister, Tapa, is employed and is doing well in her career. Siddharta has another brother who is probably in some kind of revolutionary activity.

Back at home, the vivacious Tapa, a secretary in a big firm and is due for a promotion has big plans for her future. She was taking dancing classes and has dreams of doing some modelling. Accusations are hurled against her of having an affair with her boss by her mother and her boss' wife. Even Siddharta thinks so too.
Siddharta even goes to the boss' house just to find that probably there is no truth in any of them.
All through the film, there would be sudden change in frames, sometimes in a comical way. When our hero sees a pretty girl cross a road, suddenly the frame goes to his medical school days when his Professor is teaching his class the lymphatic drainage of the female breast! There are a few flashbacks like these during his conversation wit his siblings to illustrate their bond and how things have changed.

In a few recurring scenes, the director in his own way, chuckles at the antics of the Western tourists who seem to be fascinated with everything there including the view of a cow roaming the streets! Seriously, our hero is still searching for that meaning of life...
A friend who introduces him to the flesh of forbidden love but Siddartha chickens out.
On his walk home, a friend of his cousin, Keya summons Siddartha is help out during an electrical blackout. Love blossoms. Both try to ventilate each others' woes. Keya lost her mother when she was 7 and her father is due to marry after all these years.
Another interview... this time 75 candidates for a post of 4! A weary waiting candidate passed out. Siddartha, all this while had shown adversity to the rich and entrepreneur class, barges in the interviewers' office for a showdown, thus blowing his employment opportunity.
In the end, he decides to take up the job in Bularghat, a place far from Calcutta, that he never wanted to go and he also never wanted to work for a big enterprise, a pharmaceutical company. Keya had left for Delhi and had promised to write if he would.
Siddartha thinks he would like Bularghat as he had finally heard the sweet sound of a singing bird from his childhood that he always wanted to hear but could not. The End.
There are many issues highlighted here - inequality in job opportunities between sexes with women in the favourable position, the carefree live of the westerners and the bourgeoisie whilst the general public scrapes for a living and the tumultuous way of life in this densely packed city in the late 60s and early 70s with the aftermath of the Partition, the brewing of civil war and the infiltration of leftist ideology.