Posted Monday, May 15, 2006; 20:00 HKT
Most visitors to Lahore’s Heera Mandi aren’t interested in the history of this onetime diamond district. Nor do they come to contemplate the baroque façades of the quarter’s gracefully decayed, 17th century haveli, or historic residences. Instead, visitors to the Heera Mandi are here for cheap sex, for this is the city’s red-light area, and gaudily dressed prostitutes beckon from beneath the battered wooden archways of almost every door. Many are or claim to be descendants of the nautch—the fabled royal courtesans famed for their mesmerizing dances and stirring songs—but the best that any of them can manage today is a few desultory shimmies to a well-worn Bollywood cassette. Enter Iqbal Hussain, one of Pakistan’s most controversial painters and the bona fide descendant of a long line of nautch. Hussain has returned to his boyhood home to rescue one last gem from the Heera Mandi, painstakingly restoring his family’s haveli and turning it into a four-story gallery and restaurant with decor that could be called bordello kitsch were it not 300 years old.
The walls of Cooco’s Den & Café are emblazoned with Hussain’s searing portraits of the district’s denizens—from teenage prostitutes and thickset madams to wizened harmonium players. But the most stunning treasure is found on the top floor, where the open terrace looks down into the vast sandstone courtyard of the 17th century Badshahi mosque. While the terrace is usually booked for dinner by fashionable Lahoris eager to sample the café’s home-style Pakistani fare, the best time to go is for tea in the early evenings. This is when the setting sun tints Badshahi’s minarets a deep rose, just as the muezzin starts the call to prayer. From one side of the terrace, you can watch as the mosque’s fairy lights are illuminated, circling it with a corona of gold. From the other side, you catch glimpses of the windows of the Heera Mandi, flickering with lamplight as the women take up their positions in the district’s doorways. And in the midst of all this is Cooco’s Den & Café, perched between the debased and the divine.
Re: Heera Mandi:Best experience in a red light district?
Type "mujra" at google videos or youtube.com. You find plenty of heera mandi women dancing.
Lets just say that these women are "big and healthy" punjabi/afghan women.
Re: Heera Mandi:Best experience in a red light district?
Never visited them but my mate sent me some adult mujra videos.
Put me off sex like fire with water.
You said it...I've seen the mujra videos on youtube and it really sickened me. Totally debase and cheap. This isn't your father's "Pakeezah," that's for sure.
Fallenpieta, there are two excellent books on Lahore's Heera Mandi. One is "The Dancing Girls of Lahore," by Louise Brown. The other is "Taboo" by Fouzia Saeed. Of the two, I like Louise Brown's book more. She's a professor from England who spent five years researching the area and lived there on and off during her stint. Truly amazing, mindblowing book, and severely underappreciated. It gives you a very very intimate look into the life of a kanjar family, the dying arts, and the whole prostitution scene there. "Taboo" is a great read as well, but more academic and slightly less intimate, but worthwhile especially because of the photos that are inside.
Re: Heera Mandi:Best experience in a red light district?
the pictures at cuckoo's den really gives you an idea of what's happening in the shadows of a masjid. gives the suburbanites a kick in the stomach. but, again, to them, they do it for fun. i found it sad.
Re: Heera Mandi:Best experience in a red light district?
I’ve read the one by Fouzia Saeed: Indeed a fasinating book. I must say that prior to reading her book I held nothing but contempt and intolerence for these women and men. But now, for the most part, there is sympathy and open-mindedness.
Re: Heera Mandi:Best experience in a red light district?
I just recieved from amazon a copy of Dancing Girls of Lahore. I am forcing myself not to read this book, although I just read the first few chapters, until I finish the other two which were started simultaneously.
Re: Heera Mandi:Best experience in a red light district?
"Phajee day payee" is also around there. They were yummy.
btw, There is a documentary about kalkatta district (largest in the world?). Most of it is muslim. Quite quite disturbing. Have found encourage to watch it yet. Any1 wants to enlighten themselves - feel free to ask me.
Re: Heera Mandi:Best experience in a red light district?
well..... i've been to heera mandi...i didnt go there to see mujra of any kind, ( although i knew where to go to see mujra ) but rather to eat food there...and let me tell ya.....the food there is just simply delicious....
Re: Heera Mandi:Best experience in a red light district?
Spending thousands to go around the world for the purpose of pounding it because its desi doesn't make sense. If you fancy desi then i am sure there is plenty here.
Sorry to the rest if I am so blunt but some guys become immature!