Chand, a young woman, leaves her home and loving family behind in India to build a new life in Canada. She moves to Brampton, Ontario and marries Rocky, a man she has never met.Rocky is overwhelmed by all the pressures that rest on his shoulders: dealing with his controlling mother and confused father and supporting his sister, her husband and two children who are all crowded into a small house in the suburbs. To make matters worse, he is solely responsible for putting up the money that will allow his extended family to immigrate to Canada. And all of this on a cab drivers salary.Educated and bright, Chand feels trapped in a world she cannot connect with. Estranged and mistreated by her new family, she feels homesick and misses her family in India but cannot reach out to them. Chand enters this life to find that the family is expecting her to become a slave to their needs and her new husbands life pressures wear down his basic decency to the point where Chand becomes the brunt of all of his frustrations.While working in a factory cleaning and pressing hotel napkins, she meets ROSA who sees past the make-up that covers her badly bruised face. Streetwise yet mystical, Rosa gives Chand a magical root that is supposed to bring out the love of the recipient. Chand administers the potion but finds the results of the ministration confusing. Lacking any of the support systems of her family and desperate for somewhere to turn Chand begins to fantasize another version of her life which interlaces an ancient Indian fable about a King Cobra.