MUMBAI: Loved watching Sanjay Leela Bhansali's directorial web series 'Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar'? If yes, then a new update regarding the hit show will definitely bring a smile to your face. Streaming giant Netflix has renewed the series for a second season, Variety reported.
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.
Richa Chadha, Sanjeeda Shaikh, Aditi Rao Hydari, Fardeen Khan, Shekhar Suman, and Taha Shah Badussha also feature in the show. On expanding the series, Bhansali said,"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. 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."