Quaid e Azam’s reply to Albert Einstein

Dear Albert,

I couldn’t be happier to see, you finally found your way with words. Thank you for the congratulations.

I not only acknowledge your work but also your sufferings. We both are men misconstrued greatly at first, and then finally understood, but for all the wrong reasons.

We are misunderstood and we will always be. It’s a blatant cost you have to pay when you are “the first one” to give something new to the world but fret not; “the first will always be remembered”.

We certainly have one universe in common but walk with me and you will know, we live in two entirely different worlds- the worlds rushing at two different frequencies.

In your world of science, the unseen has to be made seen, regardless of its reality, the urge to prove it will always be there. Maybe the gravity, space, time and unison universes you have discovered, will contribute to the future of universe to a great extent but in my world, there was no future to contribute to.

I had to put out real people, out of real miseries, on a real planet and they all existed at right in front of me, difficult to overlook.

I comprehended from your letter that you were concerned about how my efforts would be taken into account. In 71 years of my life, I have discovered that our struggle to be remembered righteously once we die is quiet dominating but truth is you never know how the world decides to write you down.

I followed idols, tried to skill at my craft and gave a significant period of my early life to become someone who will stay on the scroll of history forever. Trust me on this! you are what people decide you will be after you are gone.  I am contented that I have given all of my life to the time period I was born in. There are considerable odds in the favor of me being misinterpreted in the future nevertheless, my job here is done!

We both are generous discoverers and we have handed over the work of our lifetimes to the people.  Unlike you I am no genius, I have merely discovered a home and a nation. It’s a home with fresh air and wide horizons. A home where, if an Einstein is born, I hope he doesn’t have to flee to another country to be valued.  

Read: Albert Einstein’s letter to Quaid e Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah

You might have gotten frustrated to a great extent by now for I not mentioning god for once. It is strange but I do ponder sometimes, you have been tirelessly discovering things, to merely disapprove god.

How do you feel about it? Have you ever found yourself so miserable and frustrated amidst this struggle, that you gave up and decided to work in a direction other way around? Giving your lifetime to discover god?

I ask this because I have experienced a similar struggle, where I was too determined to protect my life-long ideas of perceiving things as I wanted them to be, instead of how they actually were. Then, finally on one fine day I started to work other way around and I discovered Pakistan.

I made my agreement with the fact that what I wanted to see as a whole will never be a whole. I stated what I saw. I saw that that whole had a borrowed reality. Hence, I discovered the idea of two nations primarily for the people and not for the god.

I couldn’t settle for an exchange of masters over a significant minority of subcontinent. I wanted to see a nation of an entirely different faith, living independently on land where they are free to practice it.

I am not a scientist I cannot discover the hidden for my people but I have made sure to give them what they needed right then. Now I am tired and I cannot fight their battles from years onwards while I am coughing on my couch in 1947. But I surely trust the grit and survival of the nation I have discovered. What discoverer would I be not to trust my discovery!

Dear Albert, we have given what we could to our worlds lets just sit back, light a cigar and watch them resolve whether to toss it in the trash or preserve it forever. I invite you to visit my little discovery as soon as possible because definitely, we have outlived our time or at least I have.  Since I have a God, so I think he will summon me soon. On the other hand, I think you will live little longer since you are godless.

Yours Sincerely,

Muhammad Ali Jinnah

(The writer is a student of M Phil Linguistics at Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xian. She has created a fictional piece in response to an imaginative letter another student had written as Albert Einstein’s letter to Quaid e Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah)