The only thing is no one really can explain the famine in this film. It was considered a "man made famine", and one that in reality killed over 5 million people in Bombay, some of the uncounted casualties of WWII I suppose.

Distant Thunder is based on a Bengali novel set in the 40s. The famine of 1943 is referred to as a 'man-made famine' because in the WW II context, there was acute shortage of food, and the British administration took away the lion's share of the civilian food supply for the upkeep of its own army, and left millions to starve.

Glad you liked the film, wpqx, and Soumitra Chatterjee's brilliant essay of Gangacharan. My favourite moment in the film is when the proud, pompous brahmin tries to cross a rather ricketty bridge and before stepping on, tests it with his umbrella to see if it would give way. It is an iconic image from a film that talks about the dissolution of social strata in the face of famine. Gangacharan's transformation from a high caste man who expects privileges, to a man who begins to question the very basis of the casteist social order, is pulled together in the evocative image of the ricketty bridge that could give way regardless of the caste of the person stepping on it. 

M