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The nation went into 13-day mourning. In old Delhi a bride and bridegroom about to be married were seated in front of the sacred fire when they heard the news. They postponed the wedding and returned to their respective homes. A milkman emptied his buckets of milk on the street, crying: "Bapuji is no more. What's the use of selling milk now?"
The All-India radio broadcast Gandhi's favorites: extracts from the Gita, the Upanishads and the Koran; the Lord's Prayer; the Christian hymn, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross. Then, after midnight, Gandhi's youngest son Devadas (who insisted that Gandhi be cremated, as he had wished) helped wash the body. He and Gandhi's secretary Pyarelal then wrapped the body in pure white khadi. They put a yellow paste of sandalwood and water on his face.
The household chanted their leader's favorite Hindu song: "Dress yourself in rich attire, befitting the occasion, because you are now to go to your beloved's haven. You will have to lie on the bare earth, cover yourself with dust and ultimately become one with the dust. Have your bath and dress properly. Remember you are not to come back from where you are going."
The vehicle selected to bear this man of nonviolence on his last journey was a weapons carrier. Those in charge of the arrangements, recalling Gandhi's opposition to machines, did not let the weapons carrier's motor propel it; men with ropes dragged it through New Delhi's streets. The men were soldiers, and soldiers headed the cortege. Police, about whom Gandhi also had had his doubts, lined the streets. Overhead, military airplanes, built to drop bombs on people Gandhi loved, dropped rose petals on Gandhi's bier. Tanks and armored cars rumbled behind, as if to make it very clear that the world had said: "You are dead and I will not die and, though you have made me feel uneasy, I have not listened to what you have been trying to tell me."
In front of the bier marched Gandhi's third and fourth sons, Ramdas and Devadas,* barefoot. It took almost five hours for the marchers to cover the six miles to the banks of the sacred river, Jumna. The surging crowd, which sometimes threatened to engulf the funeral procession, threw rose petals at the bier, shouted "Mahatma Gandhi ki jail"—"Victory to Great Soul Gandhi!"
At the river bank the procession came to a field as different as possible from the glittering Taj Mahal. This field looked like a junkyard. Here & there water buffalo were grazing. The Department of Public Works had built overnight a square platform of brick and cement, three feet high and twelve feet square. At the four corners were stumps of the sacred peepul tree. On the platform was half a ton of sandalwood, mixed with ghi (melted butter), incense, coconuts and camphor. Gandhi's body was raised to the pyre.
As Gandhi's sons gently laid more sandalwood atop the corpse, the throng pressed wildly in. Screaming men tried to get close enough to place a stick of sandalwood on the pyre. Hysterical women clamored for one last look; some tried to throw themselves on the pyre. Soldiers and police had to beat the crowd back with lathis (police sticks), just as they had beaten Gandhi's nonviolent followers in scores of demonstrations.