Did the Father of the Nation actually utter 'Hey Ram' before he fell to assassin Nathuram Godse's bullets exactly 60 years ago?

A new book Mahatma Gandhi [Images]: Bramhacharya Ke Prayog (Mahatma Gandhi: Experiment with celibacy) does not seem to think so.

Its author Dayashankar Shukla 'Sagar', a journalist with a well-known Hindi daily in Lucknow, questions the widely held belief and contends that the Mahatma's granddaughter Manu only heard him utter: "Hey Ra...".

He goes on to claim that Godse had also said that Gandhi had uttered 'aah..' and not 'Hey Ram' when he shot him on January 30, 1948.

The author dwells in detail about the experiments by Gandhi with bramhacharya (celibacy) and says these and the controversies arising from them had "an effect on Gandhi's views on the freedom struggle".

"With his experiments on celibacy, Gandhi had opened a new front in addition to the objective of freedom, which was unnecessary," the book says.

The book, published by Vani Prakashan, is to be released by senior journalist and Gandhian thinker Prabhash Joshi at the International Book Fair in New Delhi on February 7.