Mohammad Ali Jinnah

 He famously said - "Failure is a word unknown to me.” The man Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who was born on this day December 25 certainly succeeded in the main goal of his life - creating his dream nation of Pakistan. He certainly got it, though a moth eaten one sans Kashmir. Kashmir was very much part of the envisioned PAKISTAN which stands for (Punjab - Afghanistan - Kashmir - Sindh - TAN), a name coined by a young student of Law, Choudhury Rehmat Ali in London in 1933. The idea was regarded strictly as a fantasy of a young man and promptly dismissed.

Jinnah wasn't wrong when he said that failure was a word unknown to him. From eloping with his friend's daughter who was barely 16 year old and 24 years younger to her father's friend on whom she had a serious crush, to becoming the champion of Indian Muslims and single handedly forming Pakistan, Jinnah saw no failure in his life.

Jinnah who heard about the young lawyer's dream about forming a separate homeland for Indian Muslims, didn't entirely dismissed the idea and kept it on the back of his mind for another day. He eventually formed his Muslim League. As the clarion call for Pakistan grew louder, his popularity among Muslims continued to grow, especially in the Muslim majority areas of India. He finally managed to get his Pakistan after a lot of bloodshed.

But Jinnah wasn't a typical Mullah, as he was a wine drinking, pork eating Muslim. His personal doctor was a Hindu who was aware of Jinnah's terminal cancer but kept it a secret. He had his vision of Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan continuing to live as before. In fact Jinnah had offered the writer Khushwant Singh the position of Chief Justice of Lahore High Court. But destiny had its way.

Jinnah, who was synonymous with the making of Pakistan admitted one failure in his life. As retold by his personal doctor he regretted making Pakistan at his death bed as he passed away shortly after the country came into existence. Pakistan is still a failed nation after 75 years of its formation.