A short excerpt from Adam Yamey’s new book about Gujarat

In the Baroda Museum:

Baroda Museum

“There are two ‘memento mori’ on display. One is an Egyptian mummified corpse with exposed blackened feet, and the other is of more recent origin.

Unlike the painted container containing the age-old ‘mummy’, the other item concerned with the end of life is empty. It is a copper urn used to carry the ashes of Mahatma Gandhi to the Morli sangam at Chandod. Other urns, which contained some of the great man’s ashes, exist elsewhere. An article in the Guardian’s on-line newspaper, dated 31^st of January 2008, says of another urn containing Gandhi’s ashes:

‘The vessel was one of dozens containing Gandhi’s cremated remains that were distributed around India in 1948.’

Close to the urn in Baroda, there is a letter of condolence written by Gandhi to a friend, who had just lost…