A collection of 688 handwritten reflections by Mahatma Gandhi has sold for £1.2 million at an auction in India, setting a record for an Indian historical document sold at auction, according to The Independent. The handwritten messages were addressed to Anand T Hingorani, a close associate of Gandhi and a fellow participant in India’s independence movement. They were written over almost two years, from 20 November 1944 to 10 October 1946, and were later compiled into a book called A Thought for the Day, according to auction house Saffronart. The circumstances in which they were written were deeply personal; Hingorani’s wife Vidya had died, and he shared his loneliness and grief with Gandhi while undergoing nature-cure treatment for deafness, according to the Hingorani family. Gandhi responded by writing him a thought each day, turning a private act of consolation into one of the most extensive surviving records of their relationship. “Gandhi responded by setting aside time each day to write a personal thought. What began as a personal exchange soon evolved into a collaborative project,” Minal Vazirani, co-founder and president of Saffronart, told The Indian Express. “While Gandhi authored each reflection, Hingorani became the recipient, organizer and transcriber, ultimately preparing the writings for publication,” she said. FILED - 30 November 2002, An undated photo shows Mahatma Gandhi sitting behind his spinning wheel and reading letters. Photo: Margaret Bourke White/dpa The 688 entries cover many of the subjects that occupied Gandhi throughout his life, including truth, ahimsa or non-violence, brahmacharya (self-control), non-possession, fearlessness, religious equality, prayer, service, labor, duty, silence, conscience and self-realization. A group of nine letters from 1930 and 1931 concerns Anand and Vidya Hingorani’s marriage, including parental opposition, financial independence, reconciliation within the family and Gandhi’s views on self-restraint and domestic obligations. The wider collection was preserved by the Hingorani family across generations and was offered as an 86-lot sale by Saffronart under the title Gandhi: From the Collection of Anand T Hingorani.
