Even though it has been a little more than a month after its release on Netflix, Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar continues to remain a point of conversation across social media platforms. Sharmin Segal Mehta continues to be at the receiving end of meme fests and incessant trolling for reasons ranging from ‘being expressionless’ to her hot and cold behaviour towards her co-stars. The negativity turned so sour that Sharmin had turned off comments for one of her Instagram posts that featured her along with Sanjay Leela Bhansali from the USA screening of the series.
And finally, for the first time post the release of Heeramandi, Sharmin who’s arguably the internet’s most talked about, opens up on the chatter surrounding her on social media. In an exclusive conversation with News18 Showsha, she says, “The audience is the king at the end of the day. And as a creative person, it’s very important to acknowledge that. They have a right to their opinion – positive or negative. That’s one thing that gives me perspective and allows me to be okay.”
Sharmin believes that the positive responses were as many as the negative ones and yet the internet chose to focus more on the latter. “I had given my all to Alamzeb’s character. We tend to fixate on the negatives but there are so many positives that have also come along, which we don’t talk about. It’s perhaps not interesting enough to talk about positives and we tend to look over them to some degree,” she opines.
The 28-year-old reveals that she chose to stay away from all kinds of conversations surrounding Alamzeb following the release of Heeramandi and it’s only a few weeks ago that she decided to finally read up on everything. “There was a point when I was not looking at many things [reviews] but then slowly, I realised that I was also missing out on a lot of love that I was getting. I’ve now started paying attention to that. Over the last few days, I decided to look through it all. The audience’s opinion is what will probably help you be the best version of yourself,” she elaborates.
Sharmin adds, “I saw positivity, constructive criticism, and a whole range of feedback and that’s what happens when you put yourself out there as an artist or an actor. It was actually quite nice to hear all sides of things. It’s an inevitability. Opinions shape you as an actor and a human being. These are actual humans responding to you and it makes you realise how many people you can reach. These opinions are very important.”
With almost everyone discussing her, Sharmin is happy that she has been able to ‘reach more number of people in the last few weeks than I could’ve ever connected with in my entire life’. “They’ve not only connected with Alamzeb and Sharmin but also with Aastha from Malaal. Malaal is in the list of top ten shows because of Heeramandi. Heeramandi has allowed me to connect with so many people across the globe. It’s quite a nice experience overall,” she remarks.
