If it has anything to do with Sanjay Leela Bhansali, then you know it will have grandeur written all over it. Netflix on Wednesday evening announced the release date for Bhansali's debut web-series, Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar, with an aerial drone show in Mumbai. Present at the release-date announcement were cast members including Manisha Koirala, Sonakshi Sinha, Richa Chadha, Sanjeeda Shaikh and Sharmin Segal. The series is slated to release on Netflix on May 1, 2024. The only people missing from the event were Bhansali himself and the sixth actress in the show, Aditi Rao Hydari, who is rumoured to have secretly gotten married to her sweetheart, actor Siddharth.
Set in the pre-independence era, the show depicts the lives of courtesans. The one-line plot of the show reveals that it is about Mallikajaan, played by Koirala, who rules over a house of courtesans, but a new rival, Fareedan played by Sinha, threatens her reign as rebellion brews in British-ruled India. The epic saga of love, power, betrayal, struggle and, ultimately, freedom is Bhansali’s debut tryst with a digital platform. In an interview with Netflix’s CEO Ted Sarandos in 2023, Bhansali had described the series as his biggest project and that it would be a tribute to films such as Mother India, Mughal-e-Azam and Pakeezah. The first song from the soundtrack ‘Sakal Ban’, composed by Bhansali, with lyrics written by Amir Khusro and sung by Raja Hasan was released on March 8 and has already garnered more than 8.9 million views within two weeks.
Speaking about their experience of being a part of Bhansali’s world, Sinha said that it was so dreamy that they did not want to come out of it. Shaikh called him the “most celebrated filmmaker in the country” and said that she wanted the show to keep going on and on. Chadha’s takeaway from the experience is “high aesthetic standards”, whether it is dialogues, dancing and music. “I think we have all become better actors. His work ethic is unmatched,” she added. When asked to describe their characters in one word, she called her character Lajjo “emotional”. Shaikh’s character’s name is Waheeda and she termed her character “mysterious”, while Segal’s Alamzeb, according to her is “love” personified. Koirala called her Mallikajaan “chaalbaaz” and Sinha said her character Fareedan is teekhi as a mirchi.
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