Jinnah withdrew mentally to a more formal posture — the way he did before opening submissions in court. Bilal felt the shift: the spine straightened, the mind arranged its arguments into neat compartments.
Let us structure this argument, Jinnah said. You present a terrifying theory of future chaos. You propose a retreat to Punjab — specifically to this Montgomery district, ten minutes from the station and one halt toward Harappa — as a so-called 'castling' move. You intend to build a hidden state apparatus inside a British province, without declaring secession, without overt rebellion, allegedly with their cooperation. Do I understand you correctly?
"Pretty much, yeah," Bilal replied. "Except it's not hidden in the sense of illegal. It's… pre-emptive competence."
This is a contradiction in terms, Jinnah said. Either we obey the law or we do not. Either we are loyal subjects, or we are revolutionaries. You cannot occupy both positions simultaneously.
"That's exactly where you're wrong, Sir," Bilal said. "You already occupy both positions. You're a loyal subject when you argue before the Privy Council. You're a political insurgent when you challenge their policy as a nationalist leader. You're doing dual roleplay. I'm just asking you to optimize it."
Explain concretely, Jinnah demanded. What do you propose we do in Punjab? State it as if you were filing a written submission.
"Fine."
Jinnah drew in a slow breath. Inside that breath, Bilal lined up his points.
"One: we move your base of operations gradually to Punjab — specifically to that canal stretch in Montgomery district I'm calling Sandalbar. Official story: you are taking rest for your health, supervising agricultural investments, maybe opening an educational institution."
That would be believable, Jinnah conceded. My health is indeed fragile. Doctors have recommended a change of climate before.
"Two," Bilal continued, Jinnah's eyes moving again over the map, "we identify loyal, competent people — lawyers, teachers, ex-soldiers, clerks. We recruit them not as 'party workers' but as a prototype bureaucracy. We teach them record-keeping, conflict resolution, basic public health, logistics. We call it a 'rural uplift project' or some benign name."
That is legal enough, Jinnah said.
"Three: we work with the British, not against them. We show them we can keep an area calm, productive, tax-paying, and loyal — as long as they let us experiment with administration. They're tired, they just want peace and revenue. We give them both."
You assume a great deal of tolerance from the Raj, Jinnah warned. They are not fond of parallel structures.
"We don't call it parallel," Bilal said. "We call it cooperation. They appoint their usual officers. We become the 'local notables' who handle the boring work they hate: mediation, irrigation disputes, fair grain distribution, vaccination drives. We actually do governance instead of just speeches. They get reports of reduced crime, higher productivity. They pat us on the head and leave us alone."
And all this prepares us for the chaos you predict?
"Yes. Because when the Empire finally runs out of patience and money, Sandalbar will already have a team that knows how to run police outposts, granaries, clinics, and courts without waiting for some central order from Delhi or London. While everyone else is improvising, we will already be rehearsed."
Jinnah was quiet for a long time.
In the real room, he walked back to the desk and sat down again. The monocle still glinted on the table, forgotten. A car horn drifted up faintly from the street below. Bilal listened to both: the Bombay present and the future he carried like a curse.
If your horror stories are true, Jinnah said at last, his inner voice lower now, weighted, then the immediate danger is not, in fact, the British. It is our own people — or rather, our people under the influence of their worst instincts.
"Yes, Sir," Bilal answered. "The British mismanage the exit, but it's our people who do the stabbing and burning. And they don't do it because of constitutional abstracts. They do it because they're hungry, scared, and led by men who weaponize religion and tribal loyalty."
And you believe our only path is to build a superior logistical system under the nose of the Empire, Jinnah continued, while befriending them — or at least not antagonizing them.
"That's the game," Bilal said. "We don't shout 'freedom' from the rooftops. We quietly behave like a government long before anyone officially calls us one."
You would have me abandon frontline politics, Jinnah said, at the moment when the struggle is intensifying.
"I would have you move from stage politics to backstage engineering," Bilal replied. "Right now, everyone sees you as a performer: great speeches, sharp arguments, headlines. We need you as an architect. You're wasted on mere theatrics."
You flatter poorly, Jinnah said, but there was the faintest hint of satisfaction. Still — what you propose will be seen as retreat. Cowardice. Abandonment of the field.
"Let them think that," Bilal said. "Gandhi fasts, Nehru goes to jail, you vanish into Punjab 'for your health.' Everyone will write columns about how you've given up. Meanwhile, you'll be doing something none of them are doing: planning for the morning after independence, not just the night before."
He paused.
"And between us, Sir — you need the break. This body is running on fumes."
That landed.
Jinnah's mind turned inward for a moment, scanning the familiar aches, the constant fatigue, the cough that never fully left. Bilal felt the same scan, like a torch beam moving over old damage.
You intend, he said thoughtfully, to save not only the state but the 'chassis', as you call it.
"Selfish of me," Bilal said, half-grinning inside. "I need you alive long enough to finish the experiment."
Experiment, Jinnah repeated. You speak as if this were a laboratory.
"In some ways, it is," Bilal replied. "And every laboratory needs test subjects."
You intend to experiment on our own people? There was a chill in Jinnah's thought now.
"On systems, not people," Bilal said quickly. "But before we build anything in Sandalbar, we need to understand another set of humans: not viceroys, not the Crown… the ordinary British who live here. The ones who are just cogs in the machine."
Why should their discomfort concern us? Jinnah asked. They are, after all, the visible face of the occupation.
"Because, Sir, the machine responds to the noise its cogs make," Bilal answered. "If the average sahib and memsahib are more comfortable around us than around your opponents, they complain less, they panic less, they whisper fewer bad things into the ears of people above them. That gives us room to work. So tell me: what do these cogs complain about? Not as officials—just as human beings."
Jinnah's gaze drifted to the window, where the Bombay light pressed in, hot and white.
Most of them complain of the dust, he said slowly. And the heat. They never quite adjust to it. The monsoon, especially — the damp, the fevers, the endless infections. They watch their children fall ill with things that would be minor discomforts in London and become grave dangers here. Malaria, dysentery, cholera… child mortality haunts them.
Bilal kept silent, letting him unspool the list.
Their women are uneasy, Jinnah went on. They feel watched. On the street, in the bazaar, even in hotel lounges. Men stare — not always with bad intent, but without manners. There is… an awkwardness. No sense of giving a lady privacy even in public.
He hesitated, then continued more bluntly.
As for hygiene: there is a great deal of resentment there. Our people crowd, spit, relieve themselves in the wrong places. Kitchens are often filthy behind grand façades. Even in so-called high-class establishments, the standards fall short of what a European expects. They speak of 'Indian smells' with disgust — drains, sweat, open latrines.
Bilal winced internally.
"In my time," he said, "we turn that into cinema. Indian films, Pakistani films — we joke about the gora complex. Lines like 'tum Hindustani bohot ganda hota' — 'you Indians are very dirty' — our own villains saying it, or some caricature of a white man. And then there's the famous sign: NO INDIANS OR DOGS ALLOWED."
He let the phrase echo in their shared mind.
Jinnah's jaw tightened a fraction.
There are reasons such boards appear, he said. Some of them, yes, are pure arrogance. Some Englishmen are frankly racist. They believe the colour of their skin entitles them to contempt. But many places you refer to… He paused, choosing the words carefully. I have seen boards in front of establishments owned by Indians themselves. Parsi clubs. Certain hotels. They make 'European-only' lodges because they do not trust their own countrymen to behave by the rules they have set — hygiene, dress, manners. They want a certain atmosphere, and they feel other Indians will spoil it.
"So the famous 'No Indians' line," Bilal said, "is sometimes literally put up by Indians."
Sometimes, yes, Jinnah admitted. Snobbery, a desire to be thought 'civilised' in European eyes. Internalised prejudice, you would call it. But understand this also: when you see such notices, there is often a history behind them. People who stare, paw, crowd. Men who refuse to bathe but insist on sitting at the same tables as women who are used to privacy. The British are not imagining all of it.
He sighed, a faint exhalation that barely moved his chest.
I do not say this to excuse the insults, he added. Only to note: I myself have never been denied entry to any establishment on account of my race. Not once. My dress, my bearing, my insistence on proper manners — they open doors. They treat me, often, as one of their own.
"That," Bilal said, "is exactly why Sandalbar can work."
You leap again, Jinnah said. Explain.
"In one sense, I agree with them," Bilal went on. "It has been seventy-seven years since independence where I come from, and we are still using most of the infrastructure they left us. The rail lines, the canals, whole neighborhoods. In many places we haven't increased that by even ten per cent. We patch, we decorate, but the skeleton is still theirs."
Jinnah listened, the lawyer inside him cold and attentive.
"So instead of pretending we can throw all that away," Bilal said, "we treat their complaints as a design brief. Dust. Heat. Disease. Staring. Filth. Awkwardness for women. We build something in Sandalbar that answers those very pain points."
You speak of 'design briefs' and 'pain points' as if this were a commercial venture, Jinnah remarked.
"In a way, it is," Bilal replied. "We're buying trust. We create a place in Sandalbar — a lodge, a rest house, call it what you like — built around those complaints. A small oasis. Cool, clean, well-ventilated. Mosquito screens, proper drainage, latrines far from wells. Staff trained not to stare. Strict rules about crowding and noise. A place where a British officer's wife can sit on a verandah without feeling watched."
You wish to bribe them with comfort, Jinnah said.
"Not bribe," Bilal countered. "Host. Hospitality as politics. We design it so that every young ICS officer posted near Montgomery would rather spend his weekends in Sandalbar than in some filthy dak bungalow. We give them good food, clean linen, quiet. We treat them with a level of civility they don't even get from their own people in some districts."
And in return? Jinnah asked.
"In return, they get used to the idea that 'those people in Sandalbar' are different," Bilal said. "Competent. Trustworthy. When we ask for a small administrative experiment, a pilot project, a bit of leeway — they're already inclined to agree. Because they like the place. Because their wives feel safe there. Because their children didn't fall sick there."
He let the picture settle in both their minds: a low, whitewashed building under shady trees, punkahs creaking, filtered light on polished floors, the smell of soap and boiled water instead of rot.
"And it's not only for the British," Bilal added. "It becomes a model for our own people. Indian guests will see what 'clean' actually means in practice. How latrines and kitchens should be arranged. How to behave around women without devouring them with their eyes. We don't preach it; we demonstrate it."
You are proposing, Jinnah said slowly, a sort of social laboratory disguised as a lodge.
"Exactly," Bilal said. "A soft power lodge. You stay there when you shift to Punjab. British officers pass through. Indian notables pass through. Every official in Montgomery district knows that the cleanest, most orderly corner of their posting is the place under your patronage."
Jinnah considered this, fingers steepled on the desk. Bilal could feel the calculation, the weighing of appearances against advantages.
You intend for me, he said at last, to be known as the man who offers comfort and order — rather than only speeches and demands.
"In a country heading towards panic," Bilal said, "the man who offers order will own the future. And order starts with drains and bedding as much as with constitutions."
Jinnah's mouth curved, just a fraction.
You are a strange counsellor, he said. You speak of empires and mobs, and then you bring me back to mosquito screens and latrines.
"That," Bilal replied, "is exactly why God brought me into your head instead of Nehru's."
Very well, Jinnah said. We shall add your 'lodge' to the list. Sandalbar will require land, plans, trusted men and women to run it. If we do this, we do it to the highest standard. No half-measures.
"Agreed," Bilal said. "If we are going to impress the British with hygiene, we don't just beat the local average. We quietly beat Shimla."
Ambitious, Jinnah murmured.
"Ambition," Bilal said, settling back inside the mind that now half-shared his, "is the one thing you and I already have enough of."
The Decision
The room seemed to narrow around the desk, the map, the ledger, and the monocle — three symbols of what Jinnah was being asked to juggle: vision, resources, and persona.
Very well, Mr. Game Developer, Jinnah said at last, using the title with a faint irony that almost counted as humor. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that your knowledge of the future is accurate. Let us assume that this… Partition… will be a catastrophe unless we prepare differently. What then is our first concrete act?
"First," Bilal said, "we treat today like the start of a new company. We freeze any impulsive big moves. No London. No dramatic resignation letters. No public declarations about partition. We quietly reshuffle the schedule."
Jinnah reached for the small silver bell on the desk and rang it.
A servant appeared at the doorway almost immediately, bowing slightly.
"Yes, Sir?"
Jinnah's voice came out smooth, controlled. "Bring me today's post. And the cable forms."
"Yes, Sir." The servant withdrew.
Inside, Bilal spoke.
"Second: we cancel the London appointment," he said. "Formally, politely. Health reasons. Your doctor can back it up."
You realize this will disappoint many, Jinnah noted. I have obligations there.
"Better to disappoint London now," Bilal said, "than to disappoint India forever."
The servant returned with a leather folder of correspondence and a tray with cable forms and a fountain pen.
Jinnah took a telegraph form and began to write in quick, elegant script. Bilal watched each stroke from the inside.
TO: SOLICITORS, LONDON
REGRET UNABLE TRAVEL THIS SEASON STOP HEALTH NECESSITATES REST AND CHANGE OF CLIMATE STOP MATTERS MAY PROCEED THROUGH CORRESPONDENCE AND LOCAL COUNSEL STOP
He signed it with a steady hand: M.A. JINNAH.
There, Bilal thought. An appointment cancelled.
"That's the first piece moved," he said inwardly.
"The second cable," he added aloud, "is to Punjab."
Jinnah took another form.
To whom? he asked.
"Your tailor in Lahore, of course," Bilal answered, a faint smile tugging at the corner of Jinnah's lips. "If we are going to vanish into Sandalbar, we will not do it in rags. The King still needs proper armor."
Jinnah almost snorted — but it turned into a tiny, private exhale that only Bilal noticed.
He wrote:
TO: TAILOR, LAHORE (PUNJAB)
ARRIVING SOON REQUIRE NEW SUITS SUITABLE FOR PROLONGED STAY NEARBY CANAL COLONIES STOP PREPARE PATTERNS AND CLOTH SAMPLES STOP WILL ADVISE FURTHER STOP
— M.A. JINNAH
He signed again.
As the servant took the cable forms away, Jinnah leaned back in the chair and let his gaze travel once more to the map.
Bombay lay behind them. London receded, for now, into the background. The Montgomery district of Punjab — ten minutes from the station, one small halt along the line toward Harappa — now glowed in their shared mind as something else: a test lab, a fortress, a lifeboat.
We are changing the script, Jinnah thought, feeling both apprehension and a strange, unexpected calm. You are asking me to stop being the statue and start being the plumber.
"Not exactly," Bilal said. "I'm asking you to be the architect who isn't afraid to pick up a wrench."
And you? Jinnah asked. What role do you assign yourself in this… Sandalbar experiment?
Bilal smiled faintly inside.
"I'm just the annoying voice in your head, Sir," he said. "The one that remembers how the game ends if we do nothing."
Jinnah's gaze moved from the map to the ledger, then to the unused monocle on the desk.
Deliberately, he picked up the monocle, looked at it for a moment, and then placed it inside a drawer, closing it with a soft click.
Very well, he said. Let us see if we can do better than the future you described.
Outside, Bombay carried on — trams rattling, hawkers shouting, the sea throwing its heat against the hill. Inside the Malabar Hill mansion, behind polished doors and proper manners, a single decision had shifted.
London would wait.
Montgomery — and, within it, the little nowhere-patch Bilal insisted on calling Sandalbar — had just become the stage.