India's first NRI themed movie, is running for over a decade and is in its 500th week.

Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge became a cult film for a generation of Indians living abroad who identified with the two stars.

If one looks at the Indian film Industry it was during the 1990’s when globalization came , the character of the NRI in Bollywood films evolved one from Westernized to an NRI who is Western in his commerical consumption but with an Indian heart. Today, Indiannes within the diaspora is determined more by religio-cultural relations and traditional Indian values. And our movies capture that, therfore the resounding success of such NRI-themed movies.

DDLJ is a movie that epitomizes the relationship between the diaspora and the homeland, one where there is yearning for the homeland yet there is the Indianness of heart whilst living abroad.

A lot of critics have claimed that in most of the Bollywood movies featuring NRI’s , India the country does not exist, but Indiannes is commodifed to suit the NRI’s imagination of India and is also used as his/her justification for living away from the homeland while remaining faithful to its values.