An opulent spectacle of Lahore's Red-Light District, the first teaser of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s highly-anticipated OTT debut, Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar, dropped earlier this month. It had viewers both, excited and riled up, with several hung up on the fact that a film about Heeramandi should’ve been Pakistan’s to make. Others, however, expressed their eagerness to watch Bhansali’s take on the area, its women, its politics and lure.
Fans took to X to appreciate the teaser. "This looks incredible omg!" commented a user. "This is going to become a new obsession I just know it. It looks so good and it's so colourful, I have no idea what's going on and I don't care!" added another virtually screaming.
Many, however, held that the intense glamorisation may take away from the story and what the courtesans really represented back in the day. A user even called the show Bhansali's "romanticisation of tawaifs". There were also those who felt cheated by Bollywood's up-taking of stories centred around Pakistan's Lahore.
The makers in a recent statement described the show as “a mix of love, betrayal, succession, and politics in the kothas (house of courtesans)”. The series is expected to drop on Netflix in 2024.