Monday, May 5, 2008

Q4 4A

I'm reading The Village Bride of Beverly Hills by Kavita Daswani.

Priya's family has accepted her working as a receptionist yet they don't want her doing anything else within The Hollywood Insider. Against her family's wishes, Priya interviews a movie star to cover for her new friend, Shanisse. When he ends up getting drunk and spilling secrets that could damage his public image, he offers Priya money to not release the information from the interview. Being her humble self, she agrees to keep the information private, free of charge. One of Priya's motives for not exploiting the movie star is to keep good karma because she practices Hinduism. When she does something bad, bad karma will come back to her and in her next life (Hindus believe in reincarnation), Pria will be reborn as a cocroach and be even farther from reaching Brahman, the universal soul.
While Priya still clings to her religious beliefs in America, she has stopped dressing traditionally. To make sure that her in-laws don't know that she dresses in a Western style, Prya leaves the house in either traditional dress or her mother-in-law's old, modest, Western clothing and stops by the gym to change into her high fashion clothing for work. Priya has started to live a doub;e life, one where she stays with her traditional Indian roots, and antother where she appears extremely 'American'.

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