 Layla, torn between clashing identities, agrees to her parents' wish for her to leave America and submit to an arranged marriage, Layla enters into the closed world of tradition and ritual as the wedding preparations get underway in Hyderabad.In 2004, "Madras on Rainy Days" received the Rona Jaffe Foundation Award in Fiction.The book also won the PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award in 2005, and was awarded the Prix Premier Roman Étranger 2005 Award in France.