Imagine yourself in the Sadiq Garh Palace in Bahawalpur, waiting for the Nawab to return from a long trip to Europe. It's turn-of-the-century Punjab and you're pining away for your consort at the b...

Imagine yourself in the Sadiq Garh Palace in Bahawalpur, waiting for the Nawab to return from a long trip to Europe. It's turn-of-the-century Punjab and you're pining away for your consort at the bay window of your room in the zenana as you've been doing for a week now since the day he was set to return. A telegram had reached you then, informing a delay ---- his ship had had to re-chart its course due to maritime regulations in dangerous weather conditions ---- and that he was expected to arrive home in a day or two. It's been five dawns since then. Every time you look out of the window you feel you can hear him near ---- the sound of the royal carriage distinct across the gardens. Yet, nothing. Your favourite bazuband, the one with the five crescents ("To remind me you're five times as beautiful as the waxing crescent moon," he'd said.) and sweet bonbons ("To make the pleasure of our love sweeter.") in between, tied in black to reflect the Ghilaf-e-Kaaba displayed at the entrance of the mahal, keeps slipping off, so slender have your arms become from refusing to eat day after day, lost in thoughts of your beloved. Such is the spell he has cast upon your heart that your hunger for his love cloaks the need for nourishment that food brings and the poor palace physician is at a loss to diagnose the malady.

In faraway Mysore, a young Faiyaz Khan sings his heart out at the Maharajah's Durbar in competition with the renowned court singer Ustad Hafiz Khan :

Baajuband khul khul jaye

Baajuband khul khul jaye

Saanwariya ne kaisa jaadu daara re

Jaadu ki pudiyaan bhar bhar maare

Kya karen baid bechaare

Baajuband khul khul jaye . . . . . .

and wins the title of Aftab-e-Mausiqi, so mesmerising is his performance.

This is that gold bazuband from the Princely State of Bahawalpur, emblazoned with the crescent from the royal emblem of the House, and the very same one in Ustad Faiyaz Khan Sahib's thumri.

Or is it?

How, so far apart yet at the same time, did they both tell the same story?

Only the jewel can answer.