In a middle-class home in Ludhiana, Punjab, the sound of a dholak marks time as a chorus of female voices sing traditional wedding songs. Tonight is Chand’s (Preity Zinta) ladies sangeet (the equivalent of a bachelorette party) full of singing, dancing, laughter and good old-fashioned lewd humour. Chand is radiant in her green salwar kameez, her wrists heavy with bangles, and her dark eyes flashing brilliantly. She is beautiful, brimming with life and in this melee of women it is clear she is well loved. Tonight is Chand’s last evening in her home and in Punjab. Tomorrow she leaves India for Canada to marry a man she is betrothed to through a family arrangement.

Night gives in to day, and in the thin blue light of morning, as the city quietly awakes, Chand’s mother watches her sleeping daughter. “Wake up,” she whispers, and once Chand is roused, she tells her for the umpteenth time the fable of the King Cobra and the Saint. Chand rolls her eyes, teases her mother but eventually lets her know that the lesson of the story is not lost…“You can protect yourself without hurting anyone else” Chand announces. And her mother knows that she has armed her daughter well.

Just before her plane touches down in Toronto, Chand goes to the bathroom and in its cramped, grey space changes into clothes befitting a bride-to-be.

At the airport she greets her new family: Her mother-in-law, Maji (Balinder Johal), her father-in-law, Papaji, (Rajinder Singh Cheema), sister-in-law, Aman (Ramanjit Kaur), her husband, Baldev (Gourrav Sihan) and their two children, Kabir (Orville Maciel) and Loveleen (Geetika Sharma) and finally there is the man she will marry the next day, Rocky (Vansh Bhardwaj), who blushes as deeply as the bride.

In the airport limousine, which Rocky drives for a living, Chand takes in with curiosity the wintry emptiness of the suburbs –large monotonous spaces punctuated by strip malls and coffee shops. Punjab could not be further away. Finally the car pulls into the driveway of a modest two-bedroom bungalow where all of them will live.

Before Chand enters the house, Aman takes a bottle of mustard oil and squeezes a few drops on both the left and right side of the threshold—an age-old tradition welcoming the new bride to her home. And in another such gesture, Chand is seated and fed sweets from Maji’s hand. Once the formalities are over, Kabir quickly turns on the television and a blanket of silence descends, broken only by the occasional sound of cricket scores and awkward questions. Chand is asked to serve the men drinks.Later she offers her gifts including 20,000 dollars from her father to Rocky—her dowry. She learns the money will be used to sponsor Rocky’s brother from India.

The day of her wedding, it snows. Waiting in an antechamber in the Gurdwara (Sikh Temple), Chand smiles to herself as the big white, flakes fall gently outside. “Jesus,” grimaces another bride who is also waiting for her own marriage ceremony.

On her wedding night, Rocky lies beside her and Chand shifts anxiously. “Don’t worry,” he reassures, “we won’t do anything tonight.” Relieved, she tries to talk about the flowers. Rocky is uninterested. “Could I call my mother?” Chand asks. “Tomorrow,” he says and falls asleep. Quietly, Chand gets out of bed and from her bags finds her phulkari (a sheet embroidered by a bride for her trousseau). She covers Rocky and watches as the greens and yellows rise and fall with his breath.

When it is finally time to have their honeymoon, Rocky takes Chand to Niagara Falls. She loves their majesty, their crashing roar and asks for a photograph. “Photos are for tourists,” says Rocky.

In their honeymoon suite Chand tries once more for intimacy. “What are your hobbies?” she asks. And Rocky, startled but obliging starts to respond. Slowly they become more comfortable with each other. Suddenly there is a knock on the door. It is Maji and Baldev. “I had a dream something happened to you,” Maji says, possessively hugging Rocky. “Now while he sleeps in the car with Baldev. “Perhaps we could rent a second room?” suggests Chand. Unexpectedly, Rocky slaps Chand’s face and sends her crashing across that I know you are okay, we can leave.” Rocky stops her insisting that she sleep with Chande room. No one reacts. “Don’t waste your tears” says Maji, “this is all part of married life.”

Unable to contact her mother in Punjab, Chand withdraws into herself. She begins to live in a fantasy world inspired by the story of the King Cobra her mother had recounted so often.

Maji and Papaji spend their days in the local shopping mall so that the family can earn a little more income by renting out the pull out bed to day boarders. Chand works in a factory cleaning hotel laundry. On one side of her is Aman, and on the other side is Rosa (Yanna McIntosh). Street smart and wise, Rosa is a Jamaican-Canadian woman who knows Chand needs help. The police are out of the question. Instead Rosa gives Chand a magical root that a witch had given her in Jamaica. The root is supposed to ignite love in the heart of the person who ingests it. “Put it in whatever the bastard drinks,” Rosa instructs Chand.

The first time she gives it to Rocky in a glass of milk he collapses in a heap—and it’s not love induced. The second time she grinds the entire root as Rosa advised but the glass of milk turns into a bizarre concoction that she throws out in the backyard. It burns a hole in the ground and suddenly a snake pit appears and Brampton becomes home to its first ever King Cobra.

The men in the family are shocked by the snake and bring out their cricket bats to give it a good thrashing. But the snake keeps coming back. In Hindu mythology the King Cobra is the most feared and worshipped of all the snakes. Lord Shiva, the most powerful of the Hindu Gods, wears a King Cobra like a garland around his neck. This is to show he is beyond death. The King Cobra can also take any guise. When the snake appears to Chand, it comes in the form of a very loving and different Rocky. It is the Rocky she longs for and soon she cannot tell the two apart.

The real Rocky is struggling to keep afloat. Burdened by the pressure of supporting his parents and a brother-in-law who can’t find a job, Rocky begins to feel the weight of family obligations. It doesn’t help when Maji keeps insisting he raise the money to sponsor his brother from India. His rage continues to build.

One morning, a battle weary Chand takes the day off work. She locks herself in her room to give the day tenants their privacy. Rocky in his loving guise comes home to be with her. One of the day tenants knocks on Chand’s door and asks after her health. She tells the tenants she is fine and that her husband is with her.

The next day Rocky learns from the tenants that Chand was in the bedroom with a man she called her husband. Rocky accuses Chand of being unfaithful. Chand insists that it was he, Rocky, who was with her. “Don’t you remember, you read my palm?"

Rocky beats her mercilessly. He leaves the room to tell his family and they decide what to do with the unfaithful wife. As soon as he is gone, the kinder Rocky appears to console Chand. She implores him to leave her alone. “Wait,” he tells her, “when you face the family tell them you want to prove your innocence by taking the snake ordeal.” “Won’t the snake bite me?” she asks. “Not if you tell the truth.”

In the backyard Chand faces Rocky and his family. They sit in judgment like a tribunal. Terrified, she musters the courage to walk to the snake pit. She must put her hand into the pit, take hold of the King Cobra and speak the truth—this is the snake ordeal. Shakingly, she reaches into the pit, grabs the Cobra and slowly looks at the family. In one moment she makes a choice that will change all their lives.