CHENNAI, February 19: Mahatma Gandhi never said `Hey Ram' when he died. It was a fiction of the imagination of those who came later. ``It was true that he often said that I wish I could die with the name of Ram on my lips,'' but wishes were different from happenings, Gandhiji's former aide V Kalyanam said on Wednesday.Speaking at the `Forum for Loud Thinking' of the Local Fund Auditors, Chennai, he claimed, ``I missed the bullet by six inches, and I know exactly what happened on that day. The entire universe has been fooled by something that did not happen''. Even as the nation observes the 50th death anniversary of the Father of the Nation, Kalyanam, who said he had functioned as his secretary for some time, flaunts a cheque issued by Mahatma Gandhi barely a fortnight before his death.He held an exhibition of photos, clippings and speeches (in Kalyanam's handwriting corrected by the Mahatma), at Kuralagam in Chennai.Kalyanam said that he joined Gandhiji's movement because of his passion for`cleaning, gardening and agricultural farming'. But he was taken in as a secretary and continued for four years.Showing the 50-year old cheque he said,``Gandhiji borrowed Rs 35 from me because I was the son of a rich man and always had money on me. But the moment he reached Patna, Gandhi issued me a cheque. I deposited it on January 29, but on January 30, the Mahatma was dead''.Kalyanam claims that he now has 250 to 300 speeches of the Mahatma between 1944-48, which were corrected by Gandhiji himself, in pencil, before they were sent to the Press. There are rare photos of Gandhi as well.Kalyanam was a civilian gazetted officer unmoved by the Freedom Movement, and the only aspect of Gandhi that impressed him was `cleanliness and his constructive work'. So, he took a month's leave and went to Sevagram to work in the gardens. He was watched by Gandhi's son Devdas who sent him to meet Gandhi and he was taken in as his secretary.Ironically, Kalyanam joined the Mahatma after uttering a lie that hecould `type' and he knew shorthand. But soon he had to prove his skills and learnt to type with one finger at the rate of 80 words per minute.Kalyanam had held several papers and letters of the Mahatma. He tried to auction them at Sothebys, London, to raise funds for construction of a temple, when the government intervened and sought possession. He then said he had no objection to the papers being handed over to the government.
