 While the movie is supposedly set in Simla, and has an undefined  time period, the time period is variable, and can be measured in  part by the presence of Charlie Chaplin movies, which are being  presented in the background. These movies include  _Kid, The (1921)_ (qv) and _Gold Rush, The (1925)_ (qv), and while  we do not know when they were released in India, they give us a  general time period, although this might not fully explain the  extravagant European setting of the area, even though the British  Raj was still in force.