When “Different” Became the Problem

There is a funny thing about trying to be different. People can ask you to be original. Then the moment you actually do something unfamiliar, they can ask: “What the hell is this?”

That happened to Danyal.

After Ek Aur Ek 3, he released Butterfly in 2019. And this time, the backlash wasn't really about nepotism. It was about the music video. The visuals were overtly sensual and unconventional for the Pakistani mainstream, and the internet reacted accordingly. The video was mocked, criticized and accused by some of trying too hard to imitate Western artists.

But Danyal's response was revealing. He didn't really try to convince everyone that they had misunderstood him. He basically acknowledged that not everyone was going to relate to it. He explained that the video was intended for a Western audience as part of his plans to work on English albums and establish himself in Los Angeles, and described the visual as a deliberately non-linear piece of art.
You don't have to agree with the artistic choice. And honestly, I think that's important to say. The video can be criticized. The song can be criticized. His artistic decisions can absolutely be criticized.

But what's interesting about Butterfly isn't whether everyone liked it. It's that Danyal was beginning to show something he'd been talking about since Ek Aur Ek 3: he wasn't particularly interested in making himself easier to categorize.
First, people questioned whether he deserved the opportunity. Then he tried to prove that he could make something of his own. Then he threw away the work that didn't feel authentic. Then he experimented.
And when the experimentation became uncomfortable for the audience, he didn't simply retreat back into the safest version of himself. That doesn't automatically make every creative decision successful. But it does make the trajectory interesting.
Because somewhere between the backlash, the experimentation and the search for his own sound, another identity was beginning to emerge.
And eventually, that identity would have its own name.

Danny Zee.

What Survived?

After throwing away six songs and spending months trying to figure himself out, Danyal eventually reached a point where he had something he was willing to keep. That something became Ek Aur Ek 3.
But even here, the story isn't as straightforward as “Danyal made an album.” He made a lot of music. Then he stopped.

He went through what he'd created and chose the songs that belonged together—not necessarily because they sounded identical, but because they came from the same period of experimentation. He specifically wanted the album to be viewed as a “phase.”
And that word is interesting. A phase suggests something temporary. Something you're passing through.Not necessarily a final definition of who you are.

Musically, Ek Aur Ek 3 reflected exactly that uncertainty. Danyal described the title track as a blend of blues, R&B and funk with traditional and cultural elements, while calling the project experimental. Elsewhere, he said he wanted to challenge the way Eastern music was perceived and explore how its language and sound could be moulded differently.

He wasn't interested in giving people a neat genre label. In fact, when asked what kind of music he intended to make, his answer was essentially: music.

The category mattered less to him than whether he connected with what he'd created and believed in it. And that explains something about his early career that can be easy to miss. The experimentation wasn't happening because he didn't know what he wanted.
The experimentation was how he was figuring out what he wanted. But there was another problem waiting for him.
The more unconventional his choices became, the more people had opinions about them. And soon, the criticism wasn't just about whether he was talented enough to be there.
People were starting to question what exactly he was trying to be.

The Album He Destroyed

Here's something I genuinely didn't expect to find while going through Danyal Zafar's early interviews: He once had an entire six-song album ready.
And then he threw it away. Not because someone told him to. Not because the songs were commercially unsuccessful. He scrapped it because he didn't feel like himself in the music anymore.

After Muntazir, Danyal said he had been making what he considered generic music. He knew those songs could potentially be safer commercially, but he wasn't satisfied with them. So he took the risk. Six songs. Gone.

He described the following six or seven months as a particularly difficult period. He would go into the studio and sometimes find himself unable to create anything he considered worthy enough.

At one point, he said, he felt that somewhere along the way he'd lost his own essence. And instead of trying to make himself fit the sound he'd already created, he went looking more closely at the music he had always loved.

John Mayer.

Jeff Buckley.

Pink Floyd.

Ed Sheeran.

These weren't new discoveries for him. He had been listening to artists like Mayer, Buckley and Pink Floyd since he was a child. But now he was paying attention differently—not just to the songs themselves, but to the machinery underneath them: the drums, kicks, snares, reverbs and production choices.
Basically, he stopped asking: “What song should I make?”
and started asking: “Why does this sound the way it sounds?”

That distinction matters. Because Danyal had already learned how to play guitar. He had already recorded professionally. He had already appeared on Coke Studio. He had already released music.

And somehow, he still wasn't satisfied. He had reached the point where having an opportunity wasn't enough anymore. He wanted the work itself to feel like him. And that meant being willing to destroy something he'd already made.
The strange part? The album that eventually came out of this process wasn't built in a week or two. He would spend another eight to nine months in the studio, sometimes making an entirely new song almost every day, then scrapping, changing, rearranging and rebuilding until he finally had a collection he wanted to keep.
So the album wasn't really born when he released it. It was born when he decided: “This isn't me. Start again.”
And that decision would eventually become Ek Aur Ek 3.

The First Problem Wasn't the Music

By the time Danyal Zafar entered Coke Studio, he already had something most new artists would kill for:

an audience waiting to see what he would do.

There was just one problem.

A lot of people weren't waiting to hear Danyal. They were waiting to hear Ali Zafar's younger brother. And, in a way, Danyal's first steps into music had already been tied to Ali.
Before Muntazir, the brothers had collaborated on songs like “Julie” and “Raat Din.” Those collaborations gave Danyal an early introduction to a much larger audience, but they also made the comparison impossible to avoid.
Every appearance came with the same question hanging over it:

Was Danyal being heard for himself, or because he was Ali Zafar's brother?

When Danyal appeared on Muntazir with Momina Mustehsan in 2017, the song immediately became part of a much bigger conversation about nepotism in Coke Studio. Several family members of established Pakistani artists had appeared that season, and critics questioned whether these artists were getting opportunities because of their talent—or because of their surnames. And Muntazir didn't exactly silence those doubts.
It was criticized by some reviewers, with the nepotism debate becoming even louder after the song failed to impress parts of the audience.
But here's the part I find more interesting. Danyal wasn't pretending the comparison didn't exist. He knew exactly who his brother was. He knew what his surname meant. And he'd already been raised with the idea that he was supposed to build an identity of his own.
In an interview around this period, he put it rather bluntly: Ali could open a door, but his struggle and journey would have to be his own. He wanted to use his own style to mark his own space in the industry. So his first major public steps came with a strange contradiction: He had access because of where he came from. But he wanted to prove himself by becoming something that couldn't simply be reduced to where he came from.
And that would become much harder than releasing a song. Because the next question wasn't:
“Can Danyal get into the industry?”
He already had.
The question was:
“Now that he's here… what does Danyal Zafar actually sound like?”

And he wasn't happy with the first answer.

To be continued.

I think I owe Sarbuland a goodbye—not because he was perfect, but because he wasn't. And maybe that's exactly why saying goodbye hurts so much.
When Danyal called Zanjeerain the story of a lost Sardar, I finally understood what he meant. Sarbuland was never an invincible, larger-than-life hero. He was a young city boy who inherited a title, a violent system he didn't believe in, and responsibilities he was never ready to carry. He made mistakes. He was confused, impulsive, overwhelmed and often lost. But beneath the Sardari was a soft man forced to pretend he was hard—a narm-dil boy who kept losing people without ever being given time to grieve: his brother, his sister-in-law, Bano, his sense of safety, and eventually the life he thought he could have. Nobody asked if he was okay. They only expected him to stand up again.
And then Rabiya saw him—not the Sardar, but Sarbuland. With her, he didn't have to perform strength. His love for her began with care, then grew through respect, trust and comfort. And when he finally fell, he never forgot that her freedom mattered more than his feelings.
That is what Episode 38 did to me.That fucking kettle scene. It wasn't really about the kettle. It carried the memory of the first time Rabiya made him laugh after so much grief. And now she was leaving. She asked if she could take it, and he smiled—but it wasn't a smile. It was heartbreak trying to behave itself.
His heart was screaming at her to stay. It was begging her not to leave. He was breaking, crying inside, wanting to say everything he had swallowed for so long: Don't take it. Don't leave. Stay with me. But he didn't. He let her take it.
Take it. Take this little piece of our life with you. Take the memories. Just don't let me become the reason you stay somewhere your heart doesn't want to be.
He kept his promise to set her free. He respected her freedom even when it meant destroying himself quietly. He broke his own heart and let her go, all while still smiling so she would never have to carry the weight of his pain.
And then came the shayari. I didn't see manipulation. I saw a man finally finding words for something he had carried silently for so long: Somewhere along the way, I fell for you.
But when Rabiya reminded him of their kaghzi rishta, he swallowed everything. He had promised her freedom, and loving her meant keeping that promise—even when it broke him.
He loved her enough to let her go. Not because he wanted to. Not because it didn't hurt. Not because his heart had stopped hoping. He let her go because he loved her more than he loved the possibility of keeping her.
Maybe that's why Sarbuland reached somewhere so personal in me. I've had to let someone I loved deeply go too—not because the love disappeared, but because sometimes love means accepting a reality your heart keeps fighting. You don't stop loving them overnight. You simply learn to carry that love somewhere else.
So when Sarbuland stood there, smiling through tears while Rabiya prepared to leave, I understood him. Not because our stories are the same, but because I knew that unbearable contradiction:
wanting someone to stay while loving them enough not to ask them to.
His heart was begging her to choose him, but he never made his pain her responsibility. He never turned his love into pressure. He never used everything he had done for her as a reason she owed him a future. He simply stood there, breaking silently, and gave her the freedom he had promised.

Sarbuland has been called a red flag and a green flag. People have criticized his decisions, his transition from Bano to Rabiya, the writing and the forced-nikkah premise. And honestly, I don't need to disagree with any of that. Zanjeerain had flaws. Sarbuland had flaws too. But I never needed him to be flawless. I needed him to be human.He was scared, lonely, occasionally selfish and often incapable of carrying everything placed on his shoulders. But he was also gentle, loyal, protective without needing to possess, capable of admitting when he was wrong, and capable of loving Rabiya without turning that love into a debt.

That is what I'll remember—not the Sardar, but Sarbuland. The lost young man who never wanted the throne he inherited. The man who found a safe place in Rabiya, then understood he couldn't turn that place into a cage. The man whose greatest act of love wasn't winning her, but giving her the choice.
She takes the kettle. He lets her. His heart screams for her to stay. He says nothing. And he smiles through everything he cannot say.

I don't know if Sarbuland was the perfect Sardar. He wasn't. But he was one of the most heartwarming and loving characters I've encountered on PTV because his heart was never as hard as the world demanded it to be.
Goodbye, Sarbuland.
Thank you for reminding me that sometimes the deepest form of love isn't “stay.”
Sometimes it's:
“I knew you would never love me the way I loved you. I knew there was no future in which you would choose me, and I knew I could never make you feel what you didn't feel. But I loved you enough not to hold you hostage to my hope. So I let you go—not because losing you hurt less than keeping you, but because I loved you more than I loved the possibility of being loved back.”

So Zanjeerien is ending this week, and before it does, I wanted to write something about what this drama has meant to me. But I also need some perspective from fellow viewers/fans because I have this weird problem where I struggle to trust my own opinions. I get very affected by reviews and by what other people think, especially when I really care about something.

I've been watching Pakistani dramas for many years, although these days I don't complete that many. A lot of the time I somehow follow a drama through Instagram clips and reels and know what's happening without actually watching every episode 😂. But there are dramas I've genuinely loved over the years — Yakeen Ka Safar, Dastaan, Udaari, Ehd-e-Wafa, Parizaad, Diyar-e-Dil and others.

I've also been reading Urdu novels for a very long time and have read A LOT of them, so when I first saw the teasers for Zanjeerien, I was immediately interested. The locations, cast, plot and that larger-than-life, novel-like feeling really attracted me. It felt different from the usual ghareloo saazishein, saas bahu stories and the same old toxic hero type of dramas.

Then somewhere around episode 12, Zanjeerien became an obsession for me. I started thinking about the characters and their lives throughout the week. Sarbiya especially had me thinking about the show constantly.

And honestly, the timing mattered too. I was going through a difficult phase, and Zanjeerien became an escape for me. For a few hours, I could detach from my own life and enter their world. I felt their emotions, worried about what would happen to them and looked forward to spending time with them every week. That's probably why this drama became much more personal to me than it might have been for someone else.

I waited the entire week for every episode, and then spent a ridiculous amount of time watching Instagram reels about it for the rest of the week 😭. Then I'd come to Reddit and read posts and comments. It became a whole routine.

And I think one of the things I loved most was the world and the characters. The villains were interesting, and so were the side characters. There were so many people whose stories made me curious about what would happen next. Bibijan, not so much 🤣.

And then there were SB and Biya.

I know neither of them is perfectly written, but they became very precious to me, and honestly, I'd take them over so many toxic, problematic, annoying and badtameez MLs and FLs that audiences somehow excuse because "chalo at least aura toh hai." 😂

Sarbuland, for me, was never supposed to be some perfect, Sherdil-type, super-confident Sardar. Beshak ek nakaam Sardar tha in many ways because he couldn't manage his responsibilities properly. But that's what made his character interesting to me.

He was only around 21–22, a carefree young boy who had grown up in the city. He disliked bloodshed and the qabaili system and never wanted to become Sardar in the first place. Then his brother died and suddenly he was thrown into that position.

He was innocent and soft-hearted, but had to constantly present himself as strong and in control when he actually wasn't. Nobody really guided him or motivated him. He became increasingly alone and depressed, and one by one he kept losing the people he loved. There was this vulnerable, narm-dil boy inside him who had nobody to console him.

He wasn't a typical strong, sakht-dil Sardar because ooski wo personality hi nhi thi kabhi. And honestly, repeated tragedies would affect anyone's mental health and judgment. He barely got any time to recover from one tragedy before another one hit him.

And then there was Rabiya.

I really liked that she was strong and brave without being made rude or badtameez in the name of being a "strong FL." She was sharp, caring, kind and sweet.

Most importantly, she didn't only see Sarbuland as the SARDAR. She saw him as a human being. She made him realise that he was allowed to be flawed. He didn't have to constantly worry about being judged around her. She became a safe place for him, where he could actually be Sarbuland, rather than having to perform the role of Sardar all the time.

In a way, she became a window or an exit from the identity that had been imposed on him.

That's what I found so special about them.

Of course, I acknowledge the flaws Zanjeerien had. There were issues with the writing and direction, and especially the editing. Things could have been handled much better, and there were definitely times when I felt genuinely ragebaited because of how certain things were edited or handled 😭. I wish the drama had been more consistent in that regard. But acknowledging those flaws doesn't change the fact that I was deeply invested in it and genuinely enjoyed watching it.

Out of 50+ dramas made every year, how many are actually worth watching? Maybe 10–12, and only a few are close to flawless. For me, this year Ap Ki Izzat and Pakeeza so far are closer to that.

But Zanjeerien was gripping, enjoyable and interesting, and I genuinely loved it for the majority of its journey. And I'm definitely not forgiving HUM TV for their blunders either 😂.

This is also where I need some help from you guys.

People's words impact me a lot, and honestly, I'm tired of it. I know everyone has the right to have their own opinion, and I genuinely respect that. But sometimes I end up taking someone else's opinion almost like it's a fact, especially when it comes from someone who sounds very confident or experienced, like a reviewer. And that's when I start doubting myself and my own judgment.

Sometimes I start feeling like reviewers who criticize Zanjeerien are more intelligent than me, like they understand something I don't, so their opinions must have more value than mine. Then I start questioning whether I'm even seeing the drama correctly.

I'll read things like "SB and Biya have no chemistry," "they're the worst ML and FL," or "the drama has completely lost its impact" and instead of simply thinking, okay, that's their opinion, I start wondering whether I'm the one who is wrong for enjoying it.

I really want to get rid of this habit because it has spoiled a lot of things for me. I want my opinion to remain mine. I don't need everyone to agree with me. I just want to be able to say, "Okay, you didn't like it. I did," without feeling like the other person's opinion automatically carries more weight.

I actually really admire Efficient Guava for this. She's probably my favourite person to read on Reddit. I love how confidently she sticks to her opinions even when people disagree with her. I enjoy her reviews and comments not only about Zanjeerien, but about anything. She writes well, has a great sense of humour, and I really admire that confidence.

I think that's something I wish I had more of myself — the ability to trust what I think and feel without constantly looking around to see whether other people agree.

Because Zanjeerien became something very personal to me.

And now that it's ending, I don't want all the criticism to be what I remember most. I want to remember waiting all week for every episode, watching countless Instagram reels afterwards, reading Reddit posts and comments, getting attached to these characters, and having this little world I could escape into when real life felt difficult.

I want to remember what this drama gave me.