It is an evening off Embassy Road. For those not familiar with Islamabad geographically, on the map Embassy Road is Attaturk Avenue. But for people living in Islamabad it has always been 'called' Embassy Road.

Maybe because once upon a time – before the diplomatic enclave was built – all the embassies were on or off this road. Not only embassies but also official residences of ministers.

A famous Islamabad story – although it could be an urban legend – that when the late Maulana Kasur Naizi, after becoming a minister in the 70s, shifted to his official residence on Embassy Road; looking at all the foreigners in the neighbourhood, his son asked: "Daddy when are we going to move back to Pakistan?"

In a way, the evening is a 'move-back-to-Pakistan' – like Embassy Road, it promises to be historically significant.

The sms invite informed that there will be a presentation highlighting Quaid-i-Azam's secular credentials.

Unfortunately for historical buffs arriving 10 to 15 minutes late, the historical part of the evening is already over, as the presentation has been wrapped up.

What is left is the ahistorical part, which looking at some of the faces in the room, offers a kind of puzzle.

Being accosted with silence, in a room packed with people, where only a few minutes ago there had been a presentation, seems odd. Visually navigating some of the faces in the audience offers clues to a tension prevailing in the air.

Even the youngest person in the audience, Sadia Sarwat, looks tense and worried. She is sitting next to Ashfaq Saleem Mirza – a name eponymous with philosophy and scholarship – who organised the event.

Is Sadia the keynote speaker? Because it didn’t say on the invite. Even if it did, who remembers smses?

Obviously at this stage, many participants would want to know: who is Sadia? Because a lot of people in the gathering didn’t know Sadia.

According to one guest, who had met her briefly a couple of times: "She is the kind of person that laughs at everything and agrees with everyone."

On further probing, a social vignette begins to scribble into shape: there was a presentation, followed by some harsh comments from the audience, resulting in the prevailing silence.

Ashfaq Saleem Mirza is the first to take the floor. He reminds everyone that we are all friends here – everyone knows each other.

This not a public platform nor a political gathering. The purpose is to have a friendly discussion. And then pointing towards Sadia – confirming her as the speaker – he says: "We should be encouraging this young lady here, instead of discouraging her."

But no-one is in a listening mood, by now everyone is a victim of their own sentences: ready to fly out of the mouth like bats from a cave.

Although the discussion that follows is nothing to write home about, most sentences sound like regurgitated arguments from newspapers, read a thousand times over.

One guest who seems to have seen it all, says in an undertone: "The problem is that Quaid-i-Azam is a sensitive subject in Pakistan," then suddenly, even the undertone descends to a whisper, "so many people have opened ideological shops on the founder's name…And the competition is so fierce…Especially when everyone is claiming that his or her ideological branding of the founder is authentic."

Fierce competition is visible in the quality of discussion in the room. Twenty to thirty people and everyone with a different opinion on the Quaid.

For some he was religious, for others secular, while some have built their own Lego-constructs: lawyer first, politician later or politician first, statesman later. There are also dissenting views, some people criticising the Quaid's policy on sending tribals into Kashmir and the handling of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, after 1947.

Senior journalist Tahir Khalil sitting in the audience says: "Some of the opinions that we are expressing inside this room, we cannot express outside."

That is where all the focus is these days: Outside. The Outside is not what it used to be when Maulana Kasur Niazi shifted into this neighbourhood.

And the Outside is so dominating that it doesn’t matter if one is governor of a province or a minor girl who doesn’t know what she's doing, the 'Outside of Pakistan' dominates what goes on in the 'insides of Pakistan'.

But while outside-inside realms are on a collision path, something wholly positive is transforming on the inside.

Sadia Sarwat, who just a few minutes ago, a participant had generalised as a girl "who laughs at everything and agrees with everyone," has broken the male misogynist mould.

Gone is the stress and tension that was visible earlier, there is a look of confidence and she is directly interacting with the audience, tackling some of the harshest questions, all on her own.

Seeing this transformation, one guest pointing at a larger-than-life portrait of the Quaid in the room, remarks: "The Quaid would have liked this", hinting towards Quaid's firm stance on women emancipation, be it on his sister, Fatima Jinnah's education or the relationship with his wife, Rati Jinnah.

Sadia stresses that Quaid-i-Azam being secular is not her opinion but is based on her research. Especially, on the Quaid's private life: what he ate, drank and his relationship with women.

A guest appreciative of Sadia's research methods, says: "Across the border in India, where millions of people consider Gandhi a Saint, hundreds of books have been written about his private life and here discussing our own Quaid's private life has become an unwritten, self-imposed taboo."

One participant after digesting most of the discussion observes: "The thing is…Would Quaid-i-Azam have wanted to be labelled as secular or religious? Keep in mind that he symbolises the unity of the federation. Man on the street and the library, everyone has to relate to him. If we label him as religious or secular, we end up isolating a certain segment of society."

Then how does one unite under the banner of the Quaid?

The same participant replies: “Let there be debate…Let there be difference of opinion…Let everyone relate to the Quaid, according to his or her mentality…This way he can be everybody's Quaid.”