'Heeramandi': The ballad of Bhansali

At the launch of the trailer for Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar, which Netflix has billed as “India’s biggest cinematic series”, the international streaming giant pulled out all the stops to promote one of 2024’s most anticipated shows—and also Netflix India’s most expensive outing till date (made at a rumoured budget of Rs 200 crore)—giving a sneak peek into the world its creator Sanjay Leela Bhansali (SLB) has conjured. The event, held at the Taj Palace Hotel in New Delhi in early April, saw the main conference hall at the hotel being converted into a bazaar, with stalls offering gajras (garlands made of mogra flowers) and attar (perfume). In one corner, two women dressed in rani pink (hot pink) ensembles helped attendees pick Urdu poetry to send to a lover or a dear friend; another corner had an exhibit displaying the embellished costumes designers Rimple and Harpreet Narula have created for the show’s six leading ladies. Bhansali himself was missing, but the rich cast—Manisha Koirala, Sonakshi Sinha, Richa Chadha, Aditi Rao Hydari, Sharmin Segal, Sanjeeda Shaikh, Shekhar Suman and Fardeen Khan among them—along with Netflix India VP Monika Shergill and Bhansali Productions CEO Prerna Singh, waxed eloquent about him enough to remind everyone that the court belonged to one man and one man alone.

Four years in the making, the eight-episode series about the life of six courtesans in the backdrop of India’s freedom struggle dropped on the OTT platform on May 1. With all the synchronised classical dances and angst and broken hearts in the story, Bhansali has called it his tribute to Kamal Amrohi’s Pakeezah, Mehboob Khan’s Mother India and K. Asif’s Mughal-e-Azam. As Bollywood biggies avoid cinemas in May owing to the ongoing Lok Sabha election, Heeramandi has become the de facto biggest release of the month.

Jewel in the Pack

Netflix certainly knows the significance of the project. The trailer launch was just one of the many shindigs the OTT platform organised. In March, they had drones to unveil the release date of the show at the Mahalaxmi Race Course in Mumbai; a year earlier, they had hosted an interaction with Bhansali and Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos, where the latter described the filmmaker as among the “rare breed of creators” who deliver “style and substance in equal measure”. Proof of Heeramandi’s clout in the Netflix roster is that it is the first to have had a special screening at the Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles and is the platform’s first Indian series to be dubbed in Arabic, Malay, French, Thai and German.

In the Netflix India originals universe, Heeramandi is a bit of an anomaly. “Actually, no project starts like this,” says Shergill. She is referring to the series’ journey, which began with Bhansali heading to Los Angeles in 2019 to meet Sarandos to discuss the idea of bringing alive his 14-year-old passion project to their platform. Sarandos was glad to have a cinematic and distinctive idea, even more so after Bhansali’s Gangubai Kathiawadi became a hit on Netflix in 2022, trending in the global top 10 for non-English films for six weeks in 47 countries. Bhansali was in no mood to “curb his ambition and vision”, says Prerna Singh, who became a middle(wo)man between him and Netflix. “Most take a compromised approach because it’s the small screen, but SLB always gives a cinematic experience,” says Singh. “He told me, ‘Mujhe freedom do [give me freedom] to make it the way I want to’.”

What this meant was replicating the Heeramandi of Lahore in the undivided India of the 1940s, a district known for its artistically gifted tawaifs (courtesans)—in Mumbai’s Film City. Nearly 700 labourers spent seven months building and designing the sets spread across 150,000 square feet, with some structures standing 45 feet tall. In the Bhansali universe, the green screen is a sore sight that should be avoided as far as possible and beauty lies even in inanimate objects. So, the walls had hand-painted flowers and portraits, inscribed mirrors, and furniture was ‘aged’ to look antique. At the interaction with Sarandos last year, Bhansali had mentioned how, for his streaming debut, he had made the scale “even bigger”, calling Heeramandi “the biggest set I have made in my life”. “There’s no holding back or trying to think differently for OTT.” Shergill spoke of the mammoth task of lighting the sets; another Netflix representative recalled the aroma of fresh flowers and attar that hung in the air on the set during the shoot.

A Whole New World

The 380-day-long shoot—taking over a year and a half—was like making three films, Bhansali said during the interaction with Sarandos. Yet it was uncharted territory for the multi­hyphenate creator. There was a “lot to learn and unlearn” through the process, says Prerna Singh. The long-format storytelling necessitated adding characters and building individual arcs. “It is so demanding, so difficult, you have to be so alert because there are so many tracks and your narrative skills get sharpened,” said Bhansali. For a change, he also found himself working with producers who came with thoughts and notes on writing for a new format and also insights on what works in a burgeoning industry. Describing his meetings with Shergill and Tanya Bami, Netflix’s series head, Bhansali had said with a teasing smile: “They are very difficult to handle… You have to be ready to go through the grind because they are very demanding… We’ve fought amongst ourselves.”

Shergill has a different take on those meetings. “They are not boring, they are electric,” she told India Today. “He has a great sense of humour and drama, there’s a lot of amazing fun banter. ” Having worked with the likes of Imtiaz Ali, Vishal Bhardwaj and Zoya Akhtar at Netflix, Shergill speaks of how “it’s not easy” to work with Bhansali, a filmmaker “who’s a master of every single department” and constantly “chasing perfection”.

“All geniuses have unique quirks and he does too,” she notes. “He is exacting on his artistes and on himself. He knows his audience for his brand of cinema. Our job is to tell him that it has to adapt to streaming first… It felt great being on the other side and having relief wash over me because he will make it better than your wildest dreams.” One exception that Netflix India has already made for Heeramandi is in carrying Bhansali’s name upfront in the promotions.

Exporting Indian Culture

For many, Heeramandi has the potential to be the Netflix India original that finds international resonance, like Mexico’s Narcos, South Korea’s Squid Game, Spain’s Money Heist and Germany’s Dark did. At the trailer launch Richa Chadha echoed the sentiment. In an interview to India Today magazine, she had said, “Countries like India and China, which have years of civilisations, when they make a historical drama with an anti-imperialist theme and characters who are fighting for independence from patriarchy and to make [their] own choices… it can travel outside India.” She cited the examples of Hong Kong’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Memoirs of a Geisha (which though a Hollywood film, had a Japanese cast and also used the language) as films that struck a chord in the West.

LIFE OF A COURTESAN: (From left) A scene from ‘Heeramandi’; Richa Chadha

Heeramandi is Chadha’s second collaboration with Bhansali and one that allows her to break the mould. Chadha plays Lajjo, a courtesan who she described as a woman “soaked in tragedy and one who has started enjoying her own haplessness”. The actress is familiar with the legends associated with Bhansali—taskmaster, difficult, demanding on set—but for her he is the rare “aesthete” who intersperses classical performing arts into his mainstream spectacles. This explains the fact that one of Bhansali’s first creations for Heeramandi was composing a thumri. “He gives it so much space and respect that he makes it accessible,” says Chadha. I know that may be [the reason] why most people want to work with him again is that he makes everyone look beautiful but, for me, when I find someone whom I can jam with on culture, I get tremendously excited and it inspires me.”

It remains to be seen whether Bhansali’s cultural feast captivates Netflix subscribers worldwide or wins an International Emmy like the Netflix drama Delhi Crime did. Costume period dramas have been mostly miss affairs in Indian streaming (The Empire, Taj–Divided by Blood) but, for Shergill, Heeramandi is a bet worth taking, even if it is expensive and time-consuming. “When you don’t have box office pressure, you appreciate art for what it is,” she says. “The day we became formulaic in streaming, it will be the end of us.”

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