Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s Fall Poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar

Jinnah,40, was hard pressed to ignore
Ruttie,16, who wore gossamer-thin
Saris that clung to her subtle body,
And who had a ready flirtatious laugh.

He was her father’s good friend and his age
And went to stay with him in Darjeeling
For a month to escape Bombay summer.
It was the summer of nineteen sixteen.

His age dissolved in his personality
And her age enhanced in her majesty.
A tendril had found a brown twig to cling to,
With proximity as the great culprit.

Jinnah was a Muslim and she, a Parsi.
He is a widower and she, still blossoming.
Sir Dinshaw Petit, a man of fortune,
Thwarted his bid to marry his daughter.

Her drive for her survived the denial.
Her fall for him survived the consequence.
They kept in touch in secret, and eighteen
Turned to, she eloped with him forever.

Jinnah and Ruttie scandalized Bombay.
A glamorous couple they became known,
Cruising down Marina Drive at sunsets
In his convertible, her hair loose in wind.

Soon she gave birth to a daughter, Dina.
Sooner she plunged into some mysticism.
The difference in age and temperaments
In them grew too obvious to ignore.

She died at 29, alone and lonely
In the Taj Mahal Hotel, Bombay,
By a collapse in a mysterious way;
Who knows it could have been a suicide.

She drove me mad; she was just a child and
I should never have married her, he told.
He packed away her jades, silks and all
And rarely mentioned her later in life.

Jinnah moved to London with Dina
And his spinster sister Fatima to live.
How successful Jinnah and Ruttie had been
In marital life is a question mark.
25.06.2015