Among graduate students who had arrived from India in recent years, many spoke of the difficulties adapting to the American lifestyle. How you grow up and how you learn to socialize is very important. If you haven't learned to date, you can't deal with the dating game. It is difficult in that way to be single in America. You don't have the skills to deal with America, and you don't have the support you get in India.
Arranged marriages become more of an option.
Her soft voice rising above the haunting melody of an Indian raga, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni tells the story of Preeti and Deepak. The sounds of the sitar and tabla coming out of a tape recorder seem like a fitting backdrop for the story of the young Indian immigrant couple. As the music rises in intensity, so does the tension that is unraveling their marriage. Preeti and Deepak are torn apart by deep forces that seem alien. The chasm between Preeti's modern American values and Deepak's traditional Indian values seems to grow with every scene.