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I have had 3 close friends from India/Pakistan. One Hindu (man, born in US), one Muslim (woman, born in US, Pakistani family), one Parsi(man, from India, born in India).
*Please bear with my generalizations. I don't mean to offend anyone, this is just my experience.
What struck me about all three of them, in spite of the differences in the background, religions, and nationalities, was their willingness to obey their parents' wishes and do what is best for the family, rather than pursue their own lives, goals, desires.
The woman drank alcohol, dressed in a completely western fashion, went out to nightclubs, had diverse friends, was pursuing a master's degree in finance. But, she told me one day, she didn't believe in love, she simply had to marry someone who was from the same esoteric branch of Pakistani Islam as herself, and that she wants an arranged marriage. The branch of Islam only has 3,000-4,000 people living in the US, yet she would get a husband from that branch of Islam, and arranged, too. Now, she's got her wish, living with her European-born doctor-husband from that branch of Pakistani Islam, in Europe. I always thought that her protestations about love were a coping mechanism with the fact that she had decided to acquiese to her family's desires about her marriage, but perhaps she really didn't believe in love.
The Hindu guy was also highly accomplished, born in the US. He had rebelled against his family because instead of becoming a doctor, he was studying economics. Apparently, if he had said "art history," he would have been disowned, so economics was already a rebellion. However, he was also wistfully talking about his impending arranged marriage, and how this would make his family happy. Eventually, I found out he was in a secret relationship with a girl not from the right caste, had finally kissed a girl, at the age of 24, and was working on trying to somehow marry the girl, even though his family would all have heart attacks if they found out he wanted to marry for love, and a woman from the "wrong" caste. Note, castes apparently still apply even though he was born in the US and his family was living in the US. I don't know what happened to him.
The Parsi guy, he was studying medicine. He was a flatmate, so I had many chances to ask him about his culture. He simply said, that's what i'm doing because that's what's best for my family, end of story. His own interests, goals, were not important. He loved photography, and airplanes. But that didn't matter. He was also going to marry a Parsi woman he had met only once at a Parsi conference. Marrying someone non-Parsi was completely out of the question.
Family, lineage, the good of the clan, it seems, are much more important than in the individual. In the western tradition, at least since the enlightenment, the individual is paramount. Individual thought, rights, freedoms, the idea that your life is your own and the noblest goal is to live your life exactly as you want to, is not prevalent in indian subcontinent countries and cultures. This was shocking to me, as a secular westerner, when I found it out.
Again, perhaps i'm completely off-base. This has been my experience with 3 people from the indian subcontinent who were good enough friends that we could talk about this stuff.
