Gandhiji’s Precious Ingersoll – Lost and Found!

The nation suddenly appeared to have been shaken out of a stupor with Gandhiji’s memorabilia being brought under a sledge-hammer blow among a cartel of pecuniary bidders. After all the clamour by the powers-that-be that failed to subvert the auction, it took a liquor baron’s ‘Gandhigiri’ to intercede and save the situation from escalating into a national opprobrium. Now one would imagine that the precious heirlooms shall be safely ensconced in the sanctified realm of Gandhiji’s memory.

Somehow providence has willed that most of Gandhiji’s items are now the safe custody of the Government, some rightfully and some providentially, one of which is a shining white, Nickel-plated Ingersoll watch that he used to tie to his waist with a string. Time was one of his chief obsessions and he treasured every moment for the service of mankind, which to him was akin to serving the Almighty. Gandhiji led a most austere life and his needs were scarce too. So that on his return from South Africa, except for the Gita, his tin utensils and some mementos of his prison days, he renounced all valuables except for the Ingersoll that was too precious for him to forsake. However, it so happened that once when he was traveling to Delhi in March 1947, he was jostled in the railway compartment and the Ingersoll was stolen by an unknown hand. Gandhiji later happened to relate this incident to Lord Mountebatten with tears in his eyes. What apparently hurt Gandhiji was that with the Ingersoll being purloined, a particle of his faith too had been plucked away. He was now on the horns of a dilemma! Had the nation really understood his creed or was it just hardening into an inflexible dogma on which life could never be regulated.

The fact however, is that the same Ingersoll happened to be tied to Gandhiji’s waist when he was struck down by the assassin’s bullets ten months later. So how and when did he retrieve the lost possession of his? It so happened that some five months after the burglary incident, when Gandhiji was staying at Birla House (now ‘Gandhi Smriti’) a stranger appeared at the gates, refusing to reveal his identity to anybody but Gandhiji himself and also refusing to go away without meeting him. After being thoroughly frisked, he was allowed in. On meeting Gandhiji, he immediately took out the same Ingersoll, admitting to the fact that it was he who had stolen it and had to come to return it and also ask for the Mahatma’s forgiveness. Gandhiji is supposed to have leapt in joy and instantly embraced him. Not only that, like a kid who couldn’t hide his giggle at having recovered a lost toy, he called all his followers and brandishing the Ingersoll, introduced the stranger as though he was his unknown benefactor. So the prized possession was back, for now.

Ironically, in the last few minutes before he was assassinated, it was the Ingersoll at which he stole a glance and realised he was late for the prayer meeting, even as he was engrossed in a heated conversation with Sardar Patel. And when Gandhiji fell to the bullets, it was Manu who stole a glance at the watch tied at Gandhiji’s waist as it stopped instantly to record that it was seventeen minutes past five. In the mayhem that followed, Gandhiji’s precious Ingersoll was thankfully taken possession of and it occupies a pride of place at the Gandhi museum in New Delhi. Sadly, this time it was not the watch but its owner who was lost and forever - to the nation, to the world and to humanity at large.

So we have two diametrically opposite conundrums surroundings Gandhiji’s belongings. Apparently, a James Otis, despite repeated entreaties, ensured that the remnants of Gandhiji’s belongings were auctioned off, there was this unknown stranger who could have made the most of his theft yet, overcome by his guilt conscience, performed a quixotically noble deed as an expiation of his self-confessed sin. Obviously we are living in a world that straddles uncomfortably between the precept and practice of Gandhiji’s faith.