When Sanjay Leela Bhansali was a school student, he often imagined the walls of his 250-square-foot home, in South Mumbai’s crowded chawl being pushed out ten metres to make more room. Sometimes his angst about living in a small house as compared to those of his relatives’ and at other times the delight of visualising a bigger home interrupted his homework sessions.
In that small space, Bhansali felt something was lurking at him, was trying to find. “But I like to be lost, lost in bigger spaces. So, I enjoy big sets,” says Bhansali to AD during an exclusive visit to his three-acre set of his upcoming eight-part series, Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar. It’s his first foray into the world of streaming, a show based on the courtesans of Heera Mandi in pre-independence India, which will be released on Netflix on May 1. “Woh ten metres push kar karke ab yahan pahuch gaye (while constantly pushing that wall by ten metres I have now reached) to Heeramandi, my biggest set ever, where walls have been pushed way beyond I would have imagined as a child.”
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Bhansali’s earlier films Devdas (2002), Bajirao Mastani (2015) and Padmaavat (2018) were all grand, but Heeramandi is grander. It’s a brilliant spectacle, which beats them all in not just scale but also art and architecture. For seven months straight, 700 craftsmen worked at Mumbai’s Film City to erect the set on about 60,000 wooden planks and metal frames.
The floor houses the Shahi Mahal (royal palace) of Mallikajaan, Madam of the most powerful brothel in Heera Mandi, essayed by Manisha Koirala. There is the Khwabgaah, the quarters of Fareedan, a rival courtesan played by Sonakshi Sinha. There is also a splendid white mosque, a huge courtyard, a dancing hall, complete with water fountains, a colonial-looking room, which are the quarters of a young prince and roads and shops, and other smaller kothas and also a hammam room, all decked up to ooze opulence and showcase the rich arts, crafts and textiles of the time. The detailed Mughal miniature paintings on the walls, the delicate frescoes, the colonial portraits of British officers, the filigree work on the window frames, the enamel carving on the floor, the minutely etched wooden doors and even the chandeliers are all handmade under Bhansali’s supervision. The teak wood furniture dating back to the 1930s and 40s was brought from an antique store in Amdavad, which in itself is a museum in its own right as it is spread across 15 acres. Also, we are told that some sofas and tables used in the series have been purchased by Bhansali himself for his collection.
Heeramandi’s set is a legit township, straight out of Bhansali’s mind that was quietly being conceptualised for 18 years. The set is his interpretation of what Heera Mandi, the epitome of arts and culture, the place where poetry was a way of life and where classical dances were nurtured, would look like. It’s the home and the world of the characters that he has painstakingly created. “When there are characters I love a lot, I create special spaces for them,” says Bhansali. He thinks about what space Mallikajaan would want to be in, what would be the colour palette of her brothel, what would the pillars and the carvings on it look like, and also be inspired by the Islamic and Hindu art influences of the time. “My art directors (Amit Ray and Subrata Chakraborty) are petrified when I call them,” says Bhansali, chuckling. “I chew their brains until I get things right.”
On set, Bhansali is constantly improvising, changing and correcting things. Sometimes, objects are completely dismantled and remade again. At other times, the entire team is focused on getting the right distressed/faded look of a carpet or a wall texture that Bhansali has in mind. Even getting the right golden colour for what appears to be a simple glass sticker can be a lengthy process. “That’s how many details sir wants,” says Bhansali’s team member giving us a tour of the set.
We soon know what he means. The entire set-up of our interview shoot with the master creator, which his team has worked on for hours, is completely changed on Bhansali’s arrival. “Not this table, bring that. Get this chair not that, place it here not there,” he urges his team while they nervously scamper around to meet his exacting standards.
There can be no compromise and no negotiations when it comes to Bhansali’s vision for his set. “It’s where it all unfolds. It’s where I give my best as it’s where the camera is going to be placed and the frame will be made,” says Bhansali. “You can’t just make a set and place your characters in it. No, it doesn’t work that way. Architecture plays a very important role in frame-making and filmmaking,” he adds, expressing his admiration for filmmakers Satyajit Ray and Kamal Amrohi on their talent to lend their sets to further the narrative. “Making a good set requires lots of love and responsibility. Even the design of a single pillar comes from the depth of one’s imagination,” says Bhansali.
This imagined world of his is drawn from references assimilated over a lifetime. It borrows from the crumbling walls of Kamathipura, Mumbai’s red light area, which Bhansali passed on the way back home from school. It takes from the many antiques he saw being sold at Chor Bazaar or the fading walls of his childhood home. “I grew up in a simple, middle-class family where going to art galleries or museums was not part of the culture,” he says. So, for the longest time, he drew from life, of what he saw around him and stored it carefully in the bounds of his mind. But as time passed, the reference library grew larger, extending to his favourite artists SH Raza’s Bindu, VS Gaitonde’s textures, Raghu Rai’s photographs and Kishori Amonkar’s raag.
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And just like these, the worlds of Bhansali including the set of Heeramandi are far from reality. It’s nothing like what the real Heera Mandi in Pakistan looks like. “It can never be real as art is not real,” he says. “Can you touch a Kishori Amonkar raag? Can you take a Gaitonde painting and say let’s place it in reality? You can’t.” Art, he believes is what evokes something within you. It could be delight or distress or discomfort or something else, and that experience, he asserts, better be left unanalysed.
Though his sets and frames are often analysed deeply for he is the master of creating painting-like frames in which there is so much to see. People often tell him that they lose track of the narrative while seeing his films for the first time and that they are compelled to watch it again, which of course is great news for a filmmaker. But even then, he refuses to be dictating a viewer’s gaze in his frames. “The audience sees what they want to see,” says Bhansali. Yet, he has taken a liking to holding a shot, to making a frame and sitting and watching it and to letting it all assimilate. “I am constantly thinking will that one table matter to the audience; will that one fresco peeping out of the wall behind Mallikajaan mean anything to them?” His pursuit is to make images, and frames that are worthy of being called paintings. “Though, it’s a long way to go,” says Bhansali. He is aware of the work it takes to achieve the feat. It happens when one is freed from the failure and success of the box office. It’s only possible when one’s art is liberated. “Only then can you become fearless like Ray and Akira Kurosawa and I hope one day people will say I did it as well.”
For now, he is focused on pouring all his energies into getting that wall just right, that wall, which he can write on, paint on and with which he can create a fantastical place for the world to see and be enthralled.