This is a news article that focuses on the so-called benefits of being born into a rung of the existing caste system in India, the Brahmin caste in particular. The article illustrates the emphasis placed on caste in rural India and compares the lifestyle one might live based on whether they are from a village or a metropolitan city such as Chennai. Focusing on a young Brahmin who was extremely privileged in his village faces reversal of fortune as he makes his way to Chennai. A law was passed in the state of Tamil Nadu where as of 1950, 70% of government jobs became reserved for people from a lower caste. Given this situation, due to the fact that he is from a high casts, he has been turned down form jobs in the city and is living a frugal life earning under $100 a month; an amount that doesn't even pay his rent thereby causing him to sleep in the classroom where he is an English teacher.

Apu's father in the movie is faced with a similar situation, whereby he is living an impoverished life. A man, who is greatly respected by fellow villagers due to the fact that he is educated and wishes to be a poet, is given no respect when he travels to the city in search of a job to earn a living to feed his family. In the movie Harihar Ray wishes to be a writer because he is born into a family of writers, because he belongs to the Brahmin caste. But, given the lack of jobs in the village itself, he wonders to a nearby city where he is ill-treated, firstly because he is looked upon as a villager, and secondly is unable to get jobs that ‘villagers' would get because they are all reserved for ‘villagers' from a lower caste. Given that this movie was made in 1958, it goes to show that people all over India suffered from such problems post independence as well. And although the movie is set in Bengal and not in Tamil Nadu, Brahmin's around the country seemed to live lives similar to the ones articulated by Satyajit Ray in this film, as well as ones written about by Bellman in the newspaper article.