The letter arrived at dusk.
By the time the peon's bicycle rattled up the drive, the sky above Sandalbar had settled into a heavy violet, the last light catching on the telegraph wires that stitched the estate to the wider world.
Ahmed brought the envelope in on a tray, as if it were some fragile thing.
"From Lahore, sir," he said. "Governor's seal."
Jinnah took it without replying.
The paper was thick, dignified, carrying that faint, almost arrogant scent of government stationery. He broke the wax, unfolded the sheet, and read.
His eyes moved once down the page. Then again, slower.
The room was very quiet. Outside, a wireless operator tapped out some routine report from a village post; the staccato sounds bled faintly up through the floor.
"Well?" Ahmed asked, unable to restrain himself.
Jinnah refolded the letter precisely along its original crease.
"The Governor," he said, voice even, "wishes to consult me on measures for the wider application of our methods to the province. In light of the present cholera outbreak."
"He wants you to fix Lahore," Ahmed translated bluntly. "And half Montgomery."
"So it seems."
He did not sound triumphant. He sounded tired.
When Ahmed left, closing the door softly behind him, Jinnah walked to the window and stood there, letter in hand, looking out over the darkening fields.
The estate lamps were being lit—small flames appearing one by one at gates, along paths, near the clinic verandah. Here, order looked almost simple. Latrines, ash bowls, water filters, wireless posts. A tight system, tested and tuned.
Lahore was not Sandalbar.
You look as if they have handed you a corpse instead of a compliment, Bilal observed, his voice slipping into the quiet of Jinnah's thoughts.
"I do not know how to manage something that size," Jinnah said aloud, not for anyone else but to hear the shape of the admission. "A city. A district. This… scale of decay."
You just finished telling a Governor you could design a model for fifty villages, Bilal reminded him gently. You did not stammer then.
"Fifty villages," Jinnah said. "With my own staff, my own rules, my own courts. Now they want me to take responsibility for people I do not appoint, committees I do not control, religious leaders I have not chosen, councillors who fear their own shadows. It is not the same."
No, Bilal agreed. It is not. Which means you cannot copy what you did here. You must propose a division of labour.
Jinnah turned from the window and moved back to his desk. The Governor's letter lay there now, beside his legal pad and fountain pen.
He sat, uncapped the pen, but did not yet write.
"A division of what?" he asked. "We have already seen what the Unionist government tried to do. Notices. Committees. 'Neighbourhood health teams.' It failed. If I go to Lahore and say 'do the same, but louder,' I will be an accessory to their failure."
Then you will not say that, Bilal said. You will say: stop trying to manage everyone from the Secretariat. Divide the city and district into rings and units. Let each part have its own tools. Give each community what it already listens to—and then change what those voices say.
Jinnah frowned slightly, but the pen began to move, almost in spite of him.
"Speak clearly," he said. "Start with something concrete."
Very well, Bilal said, tone turning brisk. First: accept that people do not obey doctors and sanitary inspectors just because they are right. They obey voices they already trust. So—you propose that in every major area, the Government convene the heads of its three pillars of influence: religious leaders, entertainers, and force.
"Religious leaders?" Jinnah repeated. "You sound like a pamphlet from the Sanitary Department: 'use the pulpits.' They have already tried that."
Not like that, Bilal said. They tried it as a favour. 'Please mention boiling water after Friday prayers.' 'Please remind the congregation not to defecate near wells.' You will make it policy. A formal division.
He outlined it in Jinnah's mind as if sketching on a slate:
Every mohalla, every ward, every large village will be assigned a small council: one imam, one granthi, one pandit where relevant – the religious men actually listened to in that area. Alongside them, two or three folk singers – male and female – the ones people gather to hear in the evenings. Behind them, a representative of the municipal authority and one police officer. That is your basic unit.
Jinnah's pen started making short lines under the heading he had just written: "Local Sanitary Councils – Mixed."
"And what, precisely, do they do?" he asked. "Recite verses at the disease?"
No, Bilal said. They recite verses at the people. With teeth behind the words.
He continued, more slowly:
The imams, granthis, and pandits will be given – by you – specific passages from their own texts that speak of cleanliness, of care for neighbours, of obedience to just authority in times of plague. You will not make them your mouthpieces. You will ask them to rediscover what is already in their books.
"And if they refuse?" Jinnah asked.
Some will, Bilal acknowledged. Most will not, once they see their own people dying in their own courtyards. Those who cooperate will find themselves honoured, consulted, backed. Those who obstruct will face something they understand very well: public blame.
Jinnah's pen paused.
"And the singers?" he asked.
They follow the religious men, Bilal said. You ask for two kinds of songs. First, ones that sound like old tales—stories of villages saved because they listened, of families cursed because they brought filth to wells. Second, verses that tie obedience to survival in the most vulgar, catchy way possible. People will forget the notice. They will hum the tune.
Jinnah's mouth twitched despite himself.
"So instead of posters no one reads, we give them songs they cannot escape," he said.
Exactly, Bilal said. You marry instruction to rhythm. And after the songs, you let the municipal officer speak about rules in plain Punjabi. Then the police officer steps forward and shows the stick. Soft hand, soft word, then the cane behind it.
"And that," Jinnah said slowly, "differs from what the Unionists already tried… how?"
In three ways, Bilal said. First: you do not send sanitary inspectors alone to knock on doors. You send them standing behind men whose voices already live in those courtyards. Second: you do not make it optional theatre. You link those messages with actual consequences – not vague threats, but a clear system of isolation. Third: you build the city into rings of defence, instead of a flat, leaking map.
"Rings," Jinnah repeated. "Explain."
You propose a containment hierarchy, Bilal said. This is where your legal mind earns its keep. You define, in writing, three levels of isolation: lane, block, municipal unit.
He spoke steadily now, and Jinnah's pen followed, sketching the bones of a plan.
If a case is confirmed in a lane, Bilal said, that lane is sealed for inspection. No one in, no one out, until every house is checked by a health team backed by its local council and police. No exceptions, no bribed shortcuts.
"And if they protest?" Jinnah asked.
Then you do not baton-charge them, Bilal replied. You do something more cruel: you shout the truth from every loudspeaker and pulpit—that those who resist inspection are the ones responsible for further deaths. You tell the city plainly: 'We tried. They refused. Their pride killed children.' Let guilt and social pressure do what lathis cannot without causing riots.
Jinnah's eyes narrowed.
"And if it spreads beyond a lane?"
Then the next ring closes, Bilal said. If multiple lanes in one block show cases, that block is treated as a single unit. Markets closed. Movement restricted. Food brought in under supervision. The message is clear: co-operate early, or you will lose your trade later.
"And if an entire ward collapses?" Jinnah asked.
Then you isolate at the level of the municipal unit, Bilal said. You put cordons on the main roads in and out. You set up inspection posts on every artery – major lanes, tram stops, bus stands. No one crosses those invisible lines without being checked for symptoms.
"That," Jinnah said dryly, "will cause riots."
Not if you prepare the narrative first, Bilal answered. You make it clear from the first proclamation that this is the sequence: lane, block, ward. That obedience at the small scale prevents harsher controls later. People are selfish, yes, but they are not all suicidal. They will grasp that their stubborn neighbour may cost them their freedom of movement.
Jinnah leaned back, tapping the end of his pen lightly on the blotter.
"You are turning their fear of restriction into pressure against each other," he said. "Making society itself enforce the rings."
Exactly, Bilal said. And beyond these rings, you build the outer wall: the city's arteries.