**
Ruttie** , Jinnah’s wife, was born in a Parsi family, she met Jinnah, and they both fell in love despite the fact that she was only 16 and he was 39 years of age. After facing opposition from her family, Ruttie waited till she turned 18, and then left her family forever to marry Jinnah.
Ruttie’s family did not attend the wedding. After few years of happy marriage sadly, things took a worse turn when Ruttie got diagnosed with cancer. Before she died at the age of 29, she wrote her last love letter to Jinnah:
“Darling- thank you for all you have done. If ever in my bearing your once tuned senses found any irritability or unkindness- be assured that in my heart there was place only for a great tenderness and a greater pain- a pain my love without hurt. When one has been as near to the reality of Life (which after all is Death) as I have been dearest, one only remembers the beautiful and tender moments and all the rest becomes a half veiled mist of unrealities. Try and remember me beloved as the flower you plucked and not the flower you tread upon.
I have suffered much sweetheart because I have loved much. The measure of my agony has been in accord to the measure of my love.
Darling I love you – I love you – and had I loved you just a little less I might have remained with you – only after one has created a very beautiful blossom one does not drag it through the mire. The higher you set your ideal the lower it falls.
I have loved you my darling as it is given to few men to be loved. I only beseech you that the tragedy which commenced in love should also end with it.
Darling Goodnight and Goodbye.
Ruttie.
Jinnah was very secretive about his personal life and he hardly showed emotions but he is known to have cried twice in public. One of the occasions was the funeral of Ruttie’s death and the other one , when he visited her grave one last time before leaving for Pakistan. Jinnah left India in August 1947, never to return again.
Letter is a master piece, words selection was very sensitive to show her psychological condition and the sadness between the lines tells of a love unfulfilled. What do you people think about it?
(I’m sorry I always end up posting in Gupshup cafe)