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Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s first show on Netflix India, Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar, has received mixed reviews. Now, some internet users have claimed historical inaccuracies in the period drama, ranging from how the pre-independence era Lahore area is depicted to the timeline of certain elements on screen being incorrect. (Also Read – Sanjay Leela Bhansali says he gets ‘a lot of love’ from Pakistan: ‘I still feel we are all one’)
How is Hiramandi depicted?
Hamd Nawaz, a young doctor from Lahore, has written a thread on He wrote, “Just saw Heeramandi. Everything was found in it except Hiramandi. I mean, either you don’t set your story in 1940’s Lahore, or if you do, you don’t set it in the Agra landscape, the Urdu language of Delhi, the Lucknowi attire and atmosphere of the 1840s. My sorry Lahori self really can’t let it go.
“Hiramandi extends from Taxali Gate to modern Fajay Kay Paye or Cheet Ram Road. Try everything – you won’t find a single courtyard like this one, let alone one this big. They were multi storeyed with maximum 5/10 marla brothels/houses. The social/financial strata it represents never existed,” he further wrote.
He also argued that the average Lahori in the 1940s conversed in Punjabi, not Urdu, as Bhansali depicts in his series. He even said that Amir Khusro’s ‘Sakal Ban’ was not a song to be sung in that era. “Sakal Ban Lahori was not the thing to sing, it was Chaiti Baudi Ve Tabiba. It was the 1940s, there were Noor Jahan’s Punjabi masterpieces – cinema had given the platform to many singers of Hiramandi, and none of them sounded like the Sufiana custard we see here,” she added.
Hamd also argued that the courtesans of that era and that region never wore the attractive costumes that Bhansali had them dress up in. He wrote, “Bhansali’s explorations should definitely have extended beyond the bridal couture walk. The prostitute never had the financial security to purchase this jewellery. What are these blouses? Saree? Ghaghra? Kilt? Maybe a Punjabi outfit? Na, let’s go after them Sabyasachi.”
“This was not the road of glamor but of exploitation, slavery and filthy poverty. And the people who lived there, at least, deserve to be seen as they were,” she wrote, concluding. “I boast because I have seen that area, with the people around there Have given talks, spent my clinical rotations in hospitals there and I think this story should definitely be told, but only if someone actually comes and visits the area that he is bringing to life,” he Said.
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Some netizens also found Umera Ahmed’s popular 2004 novel Peer-e-Kamil in a bookshelf in the background of a scene set in a library.
Some others shared a screenshot of Sonakshi Sinha’s character Faridan reading an Urdu newspaper with the date claiming it is 2022.
Set against the backdrop of the Indian independence struggle of the 1940s, Heeramandi stars an ensemble cast including Manisha Koirala, Sonakshi Sinha, Aditi Rao Hydari, Richa Chadha, Sanjeeda Sheikh, Sharmin Sehgal and Taha Shah Badusha.
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