Audience at Gandhi items auction was a ’Who’s Who of New York’s Indian elite

The drama surrounding the auction of Gandhi's belongings was carried into the Antiquorum auction house here yesterday when the bidding began

Audience at Gandhi items auction was a 'Who's Who of New York's Indian elite

The drama surrounding the auction of Gandhi's belongings was carried into the Antiquorum auction house here yesterdayu00a0when theu00a0bidding began.

Inside the auction room was a mix between elite Indian-born businessmen and diehard watch collectors. One of the potential bidder was Sant Singh Chatwal, an Indian-American businessman who is close to former president Bill Clinton.

"I made up my mind to go up to maybe half a million," Chatwal, told the Times in a phone interview before the auction. "We'll see how it goes."

"Anything when it comes to Gandhi is emotional, sentimental and patriotic when it comes to Indians," said Shyan Gulati, chief executive of the Infopeople Corp, an information technology company based on Wall Street.

Describing the scene at the auction house as a Who's Who of New York's Indian elite, Gulati said, "In the last ten years, Indian professionals are doing extremely well all over the world and they'd like to contribute."

The bidders included a dozen people in the room, 30 people on the phone and about two dozen people who submitted written bids. The second highest bid was a $1.75 million bid submitted online from Britain, said the auction house.

As soon as Lot No 364, the Gandhi items, came up for sale shortly after 3 pm, a hush settled across the room and a slide show of Gandhi was displayed, with a recording of piano music, the New York Times reported.

While the bidding increments were originally set to $10,000, within a matter of seconds the price, fuelled by Internet and phone offers, escalated up to $200,000 and then started jumping by $50,000 and $100,000 increments. Within two minutes the bidding hit $1 million.

At that point, the contest became a bidding war between Bedi, representing liquor baron Vijay Mallya, and Arlan Ettinger, the president of Guernsey's Auction House, representing former Indian cricketer Dilip Doshi, who now works for a company that distributes Montblanc pens and other luxury items.

After a phone bidder declined to push Bedi's bid at $1.8 million, Bedi was declared the winner. The room burst into applause.

It is also said that Mallya and Chatwal had come to an understanding before the bidding that they would not bid against each other and were in contact with each other over the telephone while the bid was on.

The Times cited Ettinger as saying afterwards that Doshi was trying to buy the items on behalf of the Indian government.

However, a spokesperson of the Indian consulate in New York said Indian government itself did not participate in the auction as that would have been a violation of the Delhi high court order.

The spokesperson also denied media reports that it was in discussions on Thursday with Los Angeles collector James Otis about his offer to withdraw the items from the auction provided New Delhi agrees to either increase government spending on the poor or to create an international travelling exhibit about Gandhi.

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