Filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s eight-part Net ix series is stunning to behold, yet its frequent soap opera-ness insulates the grandeur
The intrigues and power struggles of courtesans in revolutionary-era India
protection. But it’s the courtesans who really call the tunes, shielding their patron’s secrets and, on occasion, leading them to ruin.
A set of dramatic ashbacks sets the series in motion. Mallikajaan, it transpires, has secrets of her own — a ghastly crime in her past, buried and hushed with the aid of the debauched nawab Zul kar (Shekhar Suman). Once unearthed, it touches o a power struggle between her and Fareedan (Sonakshi Sinha), a rival courtesan who embeds herself in Heera Mandi and sets about ruing old and new feathers.
The plot turns on Fareedan’s elaborate schemes for revenge, an awkwardly burgeoning romance — between Alamzeb and a rebellious young nawab, Tajdar (Taaha Shah) — and the agitation of the revolutionaries. The evil police superintendent, Cartwright ( Jason Shah), hovers around, digging for skeletons. Bhansali and his writers take time bringing the multiple strands together. Despite the immaculate sights and sounds on oer, it becomes a long wait. It doesn’t help that the thrilling political backdrop of the era is painted in broad strokes (there is no mention of the Muslim
League and the demand for a separate Pakistan state).
Heera Mandi, a real neighbourhood in Lahore, was established in Mughal times, with its courtesans amassing considerable wealth and inuence down the ages. There is a fascinating history of tawaifs contributing to the freedom struggle (Bibbo’s character, for instance, appears modelled on Azizun Bai, a Kanpur courtesan who fought against the British during the 1857 revolt). Yet, in calling our attention to these unsung heroes,
Bhansali and his writers tend to go emotionally overboard, drawing well-meaning yet awkward parallels between the characters and India under British rule. Mallikajaan is taunted by Zul kar for practising ‘divide and rule’. We are like birds in a gilded cage, Bibbo says, much like India — a golden bird in an imperial cage. In a surreal sequence, a funeral meeting transforms into an impromptu freedom song, a tawaif ’s emancipation via death likened to a nation gaining ‘azaadi’.
In Gangubai Kathiawadi (2022), the eponymous heroine played by Alia Bhatt advocated for the dignity of sex workers in ‘60s Mumbai. The dancers and singers in
Heeramandi are frequently accused of sex work — the show, gracefully, doesn’t elide this aspect of courtesan life. Mallikajaan runs a tight ship but stands up for her own in public. In court, she defends the high social status — as centres of re nement and culture — that the kothas enjoyed. Even Fareedan, at the peak of her villainy, responds with solidarity and concern for her peers.
Filmed on a massive budget,
Heeramandi is stunning to behold. For its lighting tricks and sheer compositional wizardry, the series is a winner (the four cinematographers are Sudeep Chatterjee, Mahesh Limaye, Huenstang Mohapatra, and Ragul Dharuman). Bhansali also pays heart-on-sleeve tributes to classics like Mughal-E-Azam and Pakeezah — the pirouetting dancers on rooftops could belong in Kamal Amrohi’s lm — and there is a passing nod to KL Saigal, who played the rst Hindi Devdas onscreen, a legacy continued by Dilip Kumar and later Shah Rukh Khan in Bhansali’s own 2002 lm.
Fardeen Khan exudes kohl-eyed menace as the nawab Wali Mohammed, while Koirala surrenders body and soul to Mallikajaan, teasing scraps of humanity from an overblown part. Nivedita
Bhargava and Jayati Bhatia are delightful as a pair of gabby attendants, Satto and Phatto. Richa Chadha, working her high and hearty laughter, gets too short-lived a role. The series could have stuck with seasoned performers like Chadha and Sanjeeda Sheikh; instead, it’s the central lovers, atly played by Segal and Shah, who occupy a bulk of the runtime. For its closing episodes, Heermandi enters a realm of gothic abstraction that is Bhansali’s mark. In the ery nal scene, the women of Heera Mandi descend upon the streets, a sea of torch-bearing protesters storming a fort. It’s Bhansali boldly reversing the end of Padmaavat (2018), where hordes of ghoonghat-clad women strode into a pit of re, singing not of freedom.
Heeramandi is currently streaming on Net ix