NEW DELHI — In the hit Hindi film of this season, three Indian bachelors and a Hermès handbag, which they have named Bagwati, go on a road trip in Spain. Their objective is to endure three extreme adventure sports. On the way they meet a beautiful Indian-British diving instructor, a Spanish girl who apparently will let any man into her bath as long as he asks “May I enter?” in Spanish and the artist father of one of the bachelors who had abandoned the boy when he was still in the womb.

Directed by Zoya Akhtar, this joyous film, titled “Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (You Only Live Once),” is set against a backdrop of affluence, easy sex and relentless reminders that life is meant to be fun. Such ideas and protagonists in a mainstream commercial Hindi film would have been unthinkable in an earlier time. Which is one reason the film was 20 years in the making, almost exactly 20 years.

Ms. Akhtar might view such a statement as an outrageous factual error.

But it’s true.

Her film had its beginnings in a moment in Indian history whose 20th anniversary went by a few days ago, unobserved by an ungrateful nation. On July 24, 1991, when Manmohan Singh, now prime minister, then finance minister, rose to present the national budget, India was in deep financial trouble. It did not have enough foreign currency to import supplies and had to pledge its gold reserves to secure an emergency loan.

It was not hard for Mr. Singh to convince Parliament and the people of India that the country had no choice but to initiate far-reaching economic reforms, to privatize, to liberate itself from socialism and the philosophies of obsolete men.