Odd as it may sound, Hindi films have been a catalyst in fuelling middle-class India's overseas aspirations. One of the earliest movies that set up foreign locales as a major attraction was Raj Kapoor's Sangam. It was his first film in colour and had an extended honeymoon sequence shot in Europe - Venice, Paris and yes, Switzerland. Sangam successfully paved the way for the trend of foreign locations in Hindi films.

The emergence of the foreign location in Hindi movies is significant with regard to the consumerist quality of '60s films. Most of us familiar with the Shammi Kapoor or Rajendra Kumar starrers of those years will remember the plush homes, fancy telephone sets, cigars, carpeted hotels and cabaret dancers flaunted in them. It was a period when the Mumbai film industry switched to technicolour and foreign locations in a movie like Sangam made Hindi cinema more hip and à la mode.
Overseas locations in Sangam were also the backdrop for sexual openness and license epitomised by the teasing number 'Mein Kya Karoon Ram', where a brazen Vyjayanthimala seduces her scandalised husband in their hotel suite. More recently, Ram Gopal Varma's Company saw a similar situation when Antara Mali kisses her screen husband Vivek Oberoi in a Singapore cafe and tells him to relax since such stuff is ok in phoren. In Hindi films, a non-Indian location has typically been a proxy for western sexual codes and provided an avenue for voyeurism. A departure from established sexual codes in Hindi movies where pristine heroines coyly waited for their men to make the first move, a foreign location brought with it the excitement of forbidden romance, besides the thrill of travel.

Foreign locations in Hindi films became more common in the '70s and '80s, and, of course, in the '90s, and were notorious for materialising out of nowhere in song sequences. So much so that it became routine to suddenly find a couple of modest means inexplicably transported to the Swiss Alps for some song and dance. A memorable one was the dream sequence in Yash Chopra's Chandni, shot in Switzerland. Another was Chopra's Lamhe, the unconventional love saga that saw Sridevi metamorphose from village belle and snake-woman roles into her chic '90s avatar. Indeed, Switzerland has been such a staple locale for Chopra's love stories that the Swiss Government honoured him for his service to Swiss tourism. The eponymous Chopra Lake in Switzerland is a tribute to the director of chiffon romances.
Foreign locations were a key to Hindi films becoming more upmarket and part of India's emerging consumer culture in the 1990s. Yet till the trend of diaspora films emerged in the mid-1990s, the foreign location remained more of an exotic addendum that gave weight to the common complaint about the fragmentary and disconnected character of Indian movies, not to mention their over-the-top budgets. A classic case was the fantasy song sequence in Aishwarya Rai's Hindi debut Jeans, that had the Great Wall of China, the Eiffel Tower and Empire State building as backdrops. The song served the sole function of offering the viewer the vicarious thrill of travel in exotic lands, foregrounded by Rai's breathtaking beauty.