During a scene set just after the family has returned from spending the summer in India, the very distinctive bright yellow blooms of forsythias can be seen in their yard. Forsythias do not bloom in the autumn.
Early in the film when Gogol's mother and father are sitting together and one of them is holding a letter that they plan to mail to India, there are 2 U.S. stamps on the envelope. These stamps are current (2007) stamps, yet the letters are being mailed in the late 1970's or early 1980's.
Several anachronisms show up in the 1977 flashback sequences
showing Calcutta (Kolkata); the railway station shows a sign for Indusind Bank which was not established until the late 1990s; there is a building of The Telegraph which was not launched till 1982; and there are shots of several bridges and buildings which are only recent additions to the city.