The Times: “Perhaps the only item of footwear to become a metaphor for life as well as a drinker’s lament is to be sold at auction later this month.
Mahatma Gandhi’s sandals were given to a friend in India in 1924 and are expected to fetch at least £15,000.
The badly worn size-eights are part of a collection of articles once belonging to the leader of India’s independence movement that has recently come to light.Other items include a shawl woven from thread that Gandhi spun, his bedsheet, his prayer beads and personal photographs. The entire collection is expected to sell for £250,000.
The story of Gandhi’s missing sandal has become a popular metaphor illustrating his philosophy of life. He supposedly dropped a sandal while running for a train but only noticed that it was missing when he was on board. In the story he tosses the other sandal on to the swiftly disappearing platform so that the pair might benefit someone. At the other end of the philosophical spectrum the expression “I’ve got a tongue as dry as Gandhi’s flip-flop” is an invitation to a drink.
Richard Westwood-Brookes, of Mullock’s in Ludlow, Shropshire, which is selling the memorabilia on May 21, said: “Items that belonged to Gandhi are treated often as holy relics.””
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