Fazeelat's function towards Class

One of the stark differences between Humsafar and Dhoop Kinare is the manner in which class boundaries are dealt with and portrayed. Humsafar is majorly focused on depicting class differences; the drama focuses on Khirad’s lowly status since she is from Hyderabad and is poor, and sharply contrasts Asher’s status through his family and his education from an elitist college. Humsafar employs the use of clothing to differentiate the classes of the characters, and moreover attaches certain values such as religiosity and virtue with the lower middle class of society.  

However, Dhoop Kinare is not shown to propagate any one class, in fact the drama never engages in distinguishing the classes of the characters. The character who is largely used to portray the drama’s disengagement with the element of class is Fazeelat Bibi, and one of the first instances of this disengagement comes in the first episode. The girls are planning to go and see the house and Fazeelat catches them making the plan. When she begins to interrogate them, it becomes evident that she speaks freely and is not restricted by her position as the ‘aya’ of the family, and likewise the girls respect her and do not reprimand her for being nosy or acting out of her position in the house.  When Fazeelat says that “Is ghar ki koi baat humse chupi nai rehti”, it shows her importance in the household. Such a personal relationship with the servants is not even imaginable in Humsafar, where class is an extremely rigid element and shapes the relationships, behaviors’ and attitudes of the characters.

In Dhoop Kinare the audience is shown how Fazeelat is always worried about Zoya’s health and eating habits. Moreover, the audience is also shown the casual relationship between Fazeelat and Baba (Zoya’s father); he does not treat her in a manner that would imply that she is a servant and works for him. With the death of Zoya’s mother, Fazeelat is given the reigns of maternity and thus is granted dignity in her position. Dignity in Dhoop Kinare is not achieved through wealth and class as in Humsafar, but through age and stature as in the case of Fazeelat.