Sanjay Leela Bhansali‘s global hit magnum opus debut series “Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar” has been renewed for a second season by Netflix.
Within the first week of its May 1 launch, the series danced its way up the Netflix’s worldwide non-English TV chart in 43 countries, becoming the most-viewed Indian series for the streamer globally. The series has been reigning in the No. 1 spot in the India Top 10 chart since its launch.
Spanning 1920 through 1947, when the subcontinent was partitioned into India and Pakistan, Season 1 of the lavish story is set in the Heeramandi district of Lahore, British India, the milieu of the tawaifs. As with the geisha of Japan, tawaifs were trained in music and dance and courted by nobility. At the show’s center are Mallikajaan (Manisha Koirala), the scheming queen of Heeramandi, and her vindictive niece Fareedan (Sonakshi Sinha), who has ambitions to take her aunt’s place.
Season 1 was achieved after an intense production process that spanned 350 shooting days across three years. “It takes a lot to make a series. This one has taken a lot. After ‘Gangubai’ [Berlinale title “Gangubai Kathiawadi”] released in February 2022, from that to now every single day I have worked without a break. So the responsibility is huge on the series,” Bhansali told Variety.
“In ‘Heeramandi 2,’ the women now come from Lahore to the film world. They leave Lahore after the partition and most of them settle in the Mumbai film industry or Kolkata film industry. So that journey in the bazaar remains the same. They still have to dance and sing, but this time for the producers and not for the nawabs. So that’s the second season we are planning, let’s see where it goes,” Bhansali added.
Season 2 was announced at an event at Carter Road, Mumbai, where a flash mob of 100 dancers adorned in sparkling anarkalis (a traditional Indian gown) and ghungroos (anklets) danced to a medley of songs from the series. The dancers delivered the news during the performance.
Monika Shergill, VP, content, Netflix India, said: “Sanjay Leela Bhansali has intricately woven magic to bring ‘Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar’ to life. Watching audiences everywhere fall in love with this series — making it truly their own as a cultural phenomenon — has been hugely energizing and it thrills me to share that we will be back with Season 2.”