From Lahore to Bollywood: Heeramandi renewed for season 2 with a twist

Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s debut series Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar has been renewed for a second season by Netflix.

In a post on X, Netflix and Bhansali Productions shared the announcement with a flash mob dance on Mumbai’s Carter Road dressed in anarkalis and wearing ghungroos, dancing to a medley of songs such as ‘Sakal Ban’ and ‘Tilasmi Baahein’ from the show.

The post was captioned, “Mehfil phir se jamegi, Heeramandi: Season 2 jo aa raha hai. (The celebration will resume, because Heeramandi: Season 2 is on its way).”

The announcement was originally made at an event on Carter Road, Mumbai, where Monika Shergill, VP of content at Netflix India, said: “Sanjay Leela Bhansali has intricately woven magic to bring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 energising and it thrills me to share that we will be back with Season 2.”

Giving some details on Season 2 of Heeramandi, Bansali told Variety, “In Heeramandi 2, the women now come from Lahore to the film world. They leave Lahore after 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.”

It took an intense production process that spanned 350 shooting days across three years to make Heeramandi season 1, according to the director. “It takes a lot to make a series,” Bhansali added. “This one has taken a lot. After Gangubai [Kathiawadi] was 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.

Within the first week of its May 1 launch, the series made its way to Netflix’s worldwide non-English TV chart in 43 countries, becoming the most-viewed Indian show for the streamer globally. The show has been reigning in the No. 1 spot in the India Top 10 chart since premiering on the OTT platform.

Spanning 1920 to 1947, when the subcontinent was partitioned into India and Pakistan, season 1 of the show is set in Heeramandi, a district of Lahore, British India, where tawaifs would dance, reign and teach etiquette to the nawabs of the time. Trained in music, dance and poetry, they could only be courted by nobility.

Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar featured Manisha Koirala as Mallikajaan, the scheming queen of Heeramandi and Sonakshi Sinha as her vindictive niece Fareedan. It also starred Aditi Rao Hydari as Bibbojan, a tawaif and revolutionary.