After watching Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Heeramandi on Netflix, I felt compelled to write two letters. One to Mr Bhansali and the other to the people of Lahore. I decided to publish those letters here.
I hope this letter finds you well. I grew up in Lahore in the 1970s and 80s, and I am very familiar with the streets and alleys of the old city of Lahore. We Lahoris call it the walled city or androon shehar.
It has its own aroma, ambience, and culture that can only be experienced; it is very hard to describe it in words. However, you as an outsider – please allow me to use this word, , as you have not lived here – have taken it upon yourself and I must say you have done a great job in the 8 episodes of Heeramandi that I watched in nearly two sittings. In my commentary on your production, I do not wish to speak on behalf of my fellow Lahoris.
These observations are personal, and I speak for myself alone. I mean no disrespect to your art, but before this, I could never watch any of your films beyond 20 minutes. The ambience you create in your films has never attracted me.
The layer of imagination in your films is too thick, the flight of fancy too high, the flow of emotions too generous, the characters too remote from the world I can relate to. However, Heeramandi is different. Your Waheedan speaks Punjabi in the Lahori style, though she seems to miss out on one striking aspect of the Lahori accent – the reversal of the R and D sounds.
Since some of the other characters, a.