The films of the extraordinarily talented Indian director Mira Nair are built upon bearing witness to Indian culture as it collides with its various antagonists. What distinguishes Nair's vision from other nationalistically-minded filmmakers is her understanding that no matter which culture represents the colliding "other," India's central conflict is internal. In Monsoon Wedding, The conflict lies in the reunion of a Punjabi family for the arranged marriage of Aditi and Hemant, who has returned to Delhi from America for the occasion, having never met his intended. At first, it seems like Nair is just doing family drama. But within the patchwork of marriage melodrama, Monsoon Wedding presents a subversive argument about the insidiousness of progress and its fluid relationship with tradition.