Burning of Anjum’s photos
After Anjum comes back after surviving the carnage of Gujrat riots of 2002, she is deeply traumatized and after watching a number of women being raped, she forces her adoptive daughter, Zainab to dress as a boy to protect her. When she is opposed by other people in Khwabgah, she sets fire to all the photos and documentaries and anything that tried to glamorize her for other people and hide the person she was actually was, and leaves the place.
No angels sang, no wise men brought any gifts
This is an allegory to the manner in which Jesus was born. When baby Udaya was discovered on Jantar Mantar just a bit before dawn, no one got to know who placed her. Her appearance was sudden. Unlike Baby Jesus, her arrival was not announced by angels, neither did any wise men brought gifts after following an eastern star
Jannat Guest House
‘Jannat’ in Urdu means heaven. Since, Anjum was living in a makeshift house built in a graveyard, such that every room contained a grave or two, it was fitting to name the place as Jannat. But, for every person who went on to live in Jannat, he could find true happiness, away from the politics of the ‘Duniya’.
Huris for martyrs
A very popular belief in Islam is that since their bodies are mortal, it’s only a vessel for the time one spends on earth. All the pleasures of this life are fleeting. According to Jihadi terrorists, one who fights in the ‘holy’ war is rewarded with thousands of beautiful angels in heaven for bodily pleasures. So, when a bunch of a terrorists who were driving for a suicide mission are derailed from their plan, their driver insists it was because he could see the naked huris dancing on the road. This means that a majority of terrorists get in terrorism only as a medium to go to a place to be happy rather than performing a holy act.
Second Funerals
Near the end, funerals are held for Baby Udaya’s mother who had died fighting for her Communist cause, Saddam’s father who had been killed by a mob after being accused of killing a cow, and Tilo’s mother’s ashes who was denied a traditional burial by her Syrian Christian community for having a child out of wedlock. These funerals signify the pain the characters have gone through, and how they have moved on from the pain to start a new future.
