You: May your soul rest in peace, sir.
Jinnah: It won’t.
You: Sir?
Jinnah: You people have failed the dream.
You: Yes, we have.
Jinnah: This country was not made to experiment with radicalism, be it religious or non-religious. It was not made to experiment with different forms of dictatorships and martial laws. I told you categorically that it would be a democracy. A state of the people, by the people, for the people – under complete civil order.
You: Yes sir.
Jinnah: Look what you have made? A mess. Everyone is enforcing on everyone else. Through guns, powder and power – without reason. We got this Pakistan on table with reasoning. Just dialects. Not force or war or battle. What’s this nonsense going around now? Killing and forcing your own fellow Pakistanis? Everyone in the pecking order spitting the one below him.
You: I have no answer sir.
Jinnah: You are the answer.
You: I am not. I am just a speck. I see hopelessness. When your sister couldn’t do it, none of us can.
Jinnah: Yes, you can. Together.
You: There is no we sir.
Jinnah: Then organize.
You: How?
Jinnah: By words. By dialects. By convincing. Not by force but by awareness through reasoning and dialogues. It will take decades; but every decade will be better than the previous one and it will not be like now where you are all living in a constant state of disgust, misery, and fear. Fatima was too old and too tired for military and its guns.
You: I agree sir. But she had a base. Here we are scattered and divided. People are abducted and killed. Others don’t even feel the pain until their own doors are knocked and knocked down.
Jinnah: Initiate struggle.
You: How can I struggle when I don’t see hope?
Jinnah: Imagine, write, convey, and convince. Hope will show a path. Paddle, and you will swim towards the shore.
You: I will drown like all others.
Jinnah: No, you will not drown before raising a generation to rise further but this will take time. Forty years for the Prophet to receive the first call – Iqra, ‘Read’. Twenty-three years for the Quran to be revealed – Walyatalattaf, ‘Handle with kindness and deliberation’. Forty years for Moses and his people to wander in the desert. About two decades for Christ to work in obscurity before his divine mission. Fourteen years for Rama’s exile in the Ramayana. Even Beethoven’s Ninth took over thirty years and Taj Mahal twenty-two. Just begin. It took me from 1906 to 1940 to conclude that a separate homeland was the solution, not separate electorates. When I saw hopelessness in one path, I found another: Pakistan. I know there are ifs and buts even in the way this country was conceived and in my own actions. Fine. Speak of that too. Criticize me. Question all your elders. Then reach a consensus of disagreements. Bury us and write your own constitution.
You: I am sorry sir.
Jinnah: No, don’t be. Just take the first step. Begin.
You: Will it be worth a struggle?
Jinnah: Absolutely.
You: Will you witness that?
Jinnah: [He smirks, turns to the round table where over a hundred sit smiling] Why not?
