Thread by @sattarical

Jinnah spent his final hours stranded.

His ambulance ran out of fuel.

For hours, drivers rushed past the founder of their country, their Quaid, as he breathed his last on the streets of his hometown, Karachi.

No one helped.

Select passages on his final hours👇🧵

"After we had covered about four miles, the ambulance coughed, as if gasping for
breath, and came to a sudden stop. After about five minutes, I came out of the ambulance and was told that it had run short of petrol."

"As I entered the ambulance again, the Quaid's hands moved slightly, and his eyes looked at me in an inquiring manner."

I bent low and said to him, "There is a breakdown in the engine of the ambulance."

He closed his eyes."

"Usually there is a strong sea breeze in Karachi, which keeps the temperature down, and relieves the oppressiveness of a warm day. But that day there was no breeze, and the heat was unbearable."

"To add to this discomfort, scores of flies buzzed around his face, and his hands had lost strength to raise themselves to ward off their attack.

Sister Dunham and I fanned his face by turns, waiting for another ambulance to come, every minute an eternity of agony."

"He could not be shifted to the Cadillac, as it was not big enough for the stretcher."

"Nearby stood hundreds of huts of refugees, who went about their business, not knowing that their Quaid, who had given them a homeland, was in their midst, lying helpless in an ambulance that had run out of petrol."

"Cars honked on their way, buses and trucks screamed to their destinations and we stood there - immobilized in an ambulance that refused to move
an inch, with a precious life ebbing away, drop by drop, breath by breath."

"We waited for over one hour, and no hour in my life has been so long and painful. Then came another ambulance. He was carried on the stretcher to the newly arrived ambulance, and we proceeded, after all, to the Governor-General's house."

"He slept for about two hours, undisturbed. And then he opened his eyes, saw me, and signaled with his head and eyes for me to come near him. He made one last attempt and whispered, "Fati, Khuda Hafiz.""

Source: "My Brother," Fatima Jinnah (1987).