Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar

Heeramandi as the name says is the place where beautiful diamonds(women) are ondisplay and the richest nawabs throw their money on them just to spend a few hours with them. They are prostitutes but their lives were nothing but like queen size, at least for the outside world. But inside the shahi mahal, every courtesan is not happy with the life they are living. They crave for love , freedom , marriage but all this is forbidden by Hujoor Malillika played by Manisha Koirala. Sanjay Leela bhansali has put disclaimer that this is a work of fiction. But it is inspired by real life incidents. So one can question the authenticity of representing prostitutes as queens of lahore and displaying their lives as an extravaganza. Surely there is a lot of liberty taken here by the creator. Series also does not impress me in the dialogues. Even though it is set in the 1940s the dialogues sound like mughal e azam era. A lot of dialogues use 25 complex words when four would do. I understand it elevates the drama, but it also drops the authenticity of characters, because nobody talks like that. Age old revenge plotline where the daughter returns for revenge who looks exactly like her mother who was killed by mallika. This storyline is outdated and expects a much better storyline from the creator. But the other plots such as the relations between nawabs and tawaifs are portrayed so perfectly. Series also adds revolution angle against british which center stage as the series reaches its ending. But it does not create that much impact for me, as there was no mention of muslim league, india Pakistan partition, the religion differences. All the elements were absent, so it questions whether this is fantasy or what? I think bhansali in awe of creating lavish and grandeur sets and characters, forgot to tell the actual and authentic life of courtesans during the last stages of the freedom fight. Whatever is shown seems very polished and very dramatic. But some of the performances are terrific like manisha koirala, aditi rao haidari, Sanjeeda Shaikh and indresh malik as transgender ustaad. Also had the question that all tawaifs were only muslims at that time? I did not see a single girl from another religion as tawaif there, which was hard to believe that only muslims tawaifs were there. Watch it if you like high drama with music, lavish sets and clothing on display with minimal effort to tell a gripping story.