The obligatory pre-requisites for watching most “interval” dramas on Indian screens lately is a near-total ignorance of historical past, together with an amazing appreciation of costumes, jewelry and environment to the exclusion of all else. Indians are in no way united on this rely. That explains why so many individuals cherished Heeramandi, Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s lavish, debut small-screen providing. And likewise why so many individuals didn’t.
In reality, essentially the most sincere second in your complete sequence is the disclaimer that seems firstly of every of the eight episodes. “A number of characters, names and occasions on this sequence are fictional, and resemblance or similarity to any precise occasions, entities, locations or individuals, residing or useless, is solely coincidental and unintentional.” That’s SLB’s escape clause. The story, though set in mid-Forties Lahore, isn’t meant to be traditionally or factually appropriate.
Whew, with that out of the way in which, SLB let his stylistic creativeness run riot. The one Schadenfreude-ish end result of that’s the response that the net sequence has evoked in Pakistan, whose denizens are outraged that Bhansali has ventured to set a dressing up drama in “their” Lahore’s Heera Mandi, full with a freedom fighter bearing the irksome surname Baloch. Why nobody in “Lollywood” had come across a Heeramandi story all this whereas is equally obvious.
The divergence of unfavorable opinions between Pakistan and Bharat on this sequence is kind of telling. Throughout the Radcliffe Line, the anger is about gaffes reminiscent of an Urdu newspaper being learn by a courtesan whose headlines embrace such “interval” gems as “Warangal Municipal Elections: TRS Distributes Tickets” and “The Launch of a Scheme to Distribute 50,000 Masks by Youth Congress” in addition to Professor Higgins’ kind convulsions over Urdu pronunciation.
However it’s truly fairly scandalous that India’s cinema group, particularly in Mumbai, now lacks the requisite area data to make sure its actors accurately pronounce sure sounds and its set designers know sufficient written Urdu to forestall that newspaper gaffe. Time was when the best Urdu was spoken and written on “this facet” of the border, with Lucknow and Delhi main the cost. Now, shamefully, Pakistan has cause to say it.
Indians, alternatively, are extra incensed by the over-stylised look of the manufacturing, to the purpose of blurring the storyline and stifling the expressions of the characters. Every thing is so colour-coordinated and pristine that even the conventional hustle-bustle of the ‘Shahi Mohalla’ of an enormous metropolis like Lahore is omitted. It’s so sanitized that it may simply as nicely have been set within the Mughal emperor’s fake metropolis inside Delhi’s Qila Mubarak or Pink Fort.
No youngsters, no stray canine, no roosting pigeons, no rubbish by the kerbside, no mud, no potholes, no timber and even leaves. There aren’t any ambient avenue sounds, no strains of vocal riyaz wafting within the air, no distributors of jalebis or paya both. Sure, it may be mentioned that SLB is merely paying homage to Bollywood historical past by evoking the aesthetic of Mughal-e-Azam, Pakeezah and Umrao Jaan. However expertise has superior quite a bit since then: why not use it for realism?
This devotion to stylised actuality is why the absence of “actual” politics can be not stunning—though possibly solely historical past aficionados missed that dimension. What number of know or keep in mind that Lahore was the place Jinnah first referred to as for Pakistan in 1940? And since most (presumably) don’t, the curious lack of reference to any main political determine and the clearly deliberate brushing out of the growing communal pressure goes unnoticed.
As one of many baghis—Bhagat Singh-like revolutionaries, all Muslims although Lahore had a substantial Hindu inhabitants earlier than Partition—mentions the famine in Bengal whereas addressing a gathering of likeminded Lahoris, the setting needs to be 1943-44, as there are additionally scenes of protest marchers chanting Bharat Chhoro together with Inquilab Zindabad. Provided that viewers know up to date historical past, which is in no way a widespread phenomenon.
Courtesans—tawaifs—truly taking part in a decisive position within the freedom wrestle isn’t an unbelievable supposition; nonetheless, nobody had truly explored it cinematically, so kudos to SLB for taking over Moin Beg’s novel on this theme and working with it. However to set in it an virtually ahistorical context, neutered from actuality is a bit a lot. Because the context is intentionally underplayed, the characters seem to lack depth, and their actions look like melodrama.
Why an Oxford-returned nawabzada immediately joins the liberty wrestle is unclear. Why he additionally blatantly comes onto an unknown younger girl—who, for all he is aware of, may nicely be a nawabzadi—at a celebration at his mansion can be inexplicable. How the identical lady, who he now is aware of is Alamzeb (a tawaif’s daughter) is allowed to remain as a “visitor” along with his Dadijaan cooing over her relatively than frowning on the impropriety of it, is equally unusual.
Some extent right here about unreal appearances is germane too. Not like in Heeramandi, blow-dried, artfully curled free-flowing tresses had been by no means the norm in any a part of undivided India, whether or not tawaifs or ‘respectable’ girls on the time. Lengthy tresses had been let free solely in mattress chambers; in any other case, they had been washed, perfumed, oiled, combed and coiled into buns or plaits and embellished with jewels and flowers. Classic pictures testify to that.
Those that have seen photographs and flicks of that point would additionally vouch that almost all males didn’t have bulging biceps and six-pack abs. Solely wrestlers did. However, as within the case of 2023’s Jubilee internet sequence set in the identical period so additionally with Heeramandi, the main male characters have gym-sculpted our bodies, obligingly bared in towel-clad scenes—which now appear to be as de rigueur for immediately’s OTT plots as moist saree dance scenes as soon as had been for ladies in films.
The present development of the glabrous male torso and arms can be seen in Heeramandi, with even the gloriously thick-haired Tajdar Baloch baring a startlingly hairless chest even because the suggestively tousled Alamzeb languorously snuggles into her distinctively Twenty first-century cover. Two of the three white characters don’t sound British—one has a distinctly European accent whereas the opposite sounds Indian; the one one who does get the accent proper is an American!
And now, lastly, to the performing. The huzoor (madam) Mallikajaan performed by Manisha Koirala is intent upon her menacing drawl, virtually to the exclusion of all else. However Koirala is saved by her excellent performing talent from the dire mixture of a melodramatic script and an over-ornate setting. Sonakshi Sinha because the vengeful Fareedan is vigorous however her scheming has a saas-bahu serial air; her Urdu in all probability has a nails-on-blackboard impact on present Lahoris.
Sharmin Segal Mehta as Alamzeb is a big disappointment on condition that she probably had the meatiest position. On the subject of picket expressions, she even beat her screen-sister Aditi Rao Hydari (Bibbojaan) to it, with the identical half-smile, faraway look and flat, husky supply irrespective of whether or not within the throes of ardour or ache, regret or author’s block. Hydari’s trademark deer-in-the-headlights look, seen in Taj and in Padmavat, is strictly the identical right here too.
Richa Chadha because the tragically sad tawaif Lajjo and Sanjida Sheikh as Waheeda (Mallikajaan’s bitter sister), two Punjabi-speaking feminine retainers, a Sikh coachman and a number of two-dimensional characters represent a colour-coordinated however unexceptional backdrop to the principle story. Sadly, regardless of being set in a dramatic time with an uncommon plot, Heeramandi will get derailed by SLB’s unflagging obsession with aesthetics relatively than substance.
However that makes for a really soothing expertise too. And there’s nothing incorrect with curling up on the sofa or mattress with popcorn (with or with no important different) to have an fulfilling weekend binge-watching an extravagantly mounted costume drama with evocative music and an uncomplicated plot. Even a weekday escape to SLB’s Instagramically good, weather-proof world isn’t dangerous as an antidote to the present heatwave and election fervour.
Ignorance of Indian historical past is clear in lots of Sanjay Leela Bhansali movies; that lots of them have however been business hits signifies if not the extent of historic data amongst Indians then actually the significance most of us give it. “Don’t let information stand in the way in which of a superb story” is an adage that has been efficiently adopted by folks in spheres apart from the movie business too, in spite of everything. After which there’s all the time SLB’s escape clause…
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