Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi debuts on social media platform X; Reminiscences who she met husband, shares about her memoir
Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Saturday made her X debut, sharing a video in which she recalled her meeting with husband Rajiv Gandhi at a small Greek restaurant in Cambridge back in 1965.
The video also gave a sneak peek into her forthcoming memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, which is scheduled for release on November 10th.
The video featured memories and old photographs of the couple, which recalled their companionship that grew after their first interaction at The Varsity restaurant.
She recalled how her search for good food led her to Rahul. Sonia Gandhi, who discovered the restaurant while struggling to find good Italian food, was introduced by her mutual friend.
Asked about what it was like falling in love with Rajiv Gandhi, she said, “Food in England in those days was awful. In those days, you didn’t have so many restaurants, you know, like you have today.”
“And so, I was constantly looking for a place where I could find some food which was closer to my kind of food — Italian food in that case.
“And then, we discovered this place (Varsity Restaurant). It was a Greek restaurant, where many European students, but also Indian students, used to go for their meals. And that is then where I met Rajiv in that very restaurant,” the former Congress chief said.
“When I first met him, I felt almost immediately that you know he was someone I would really love to be with. And, of course, I learned that it was the same for him,” Gandhi recalled in the video.
She further went on to say how they turned each other’s Valentines from just friends and finally got hitched.
The party welcomed Sonia Gandhi’s arrival on the platform, posting: “A new voice joins the conversation! CPP Chairperson Smt Sonia Gandhi ji makes her Twitter (X) debut.”
Congress leader Pawan Khera, while resharing her video, wrote: “The story of Sonia Ji and Rajiv Ji feels like a midsummer night’s dream – beautiful, idyllic, almost too perfect until a dark cloud of tragedy shattered it.
Yet, even in the face of unimaginable loss, the promise of responsibility, duty, loyalty and sacrifice endured.
Sonia Ji has now joined X, sharing beautiful anecdotes from her early meetings with her husband, Rajiv Gandhi Ji.”
The memoir gives us a glance of life from her childhood in post-war Italy and romance with Rajiv Gandhi to her move to India and the personal losses that shaped her life and relationship with her adopted country.