Sonia Gandhi’s memoir recalls Clinton’s ‘roving eye’ and the loss of her first son

Sonia Gandhi’s memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, describes the death of her first son soon after birth. The book, released on 10 November, also gives frank sketches of world leaders she met, according to reports of it.

The former Congress president said in a statement that heartbreak and loss had pushed her into public life, after years in which she had fiercely guarded her privacy, The Hindu reported. The book is published in India by HarperCollins India.

A son who died after birth

Ms. Gandhi writes that she and Rajiv Gandhi lost a baby boy just after his birth, before their son Rahul was born. “We fell in love with him,” she writes, NDTV reported. She recalls that Rajiv, raised to keep a “stiff upper lip”, broke down and cried with her.

India Today reported that she describes how the baby was buried at a farm in Mehrauli, in Delhi. The Times of India quoted her refusing to let the baby be put into a river.

The book also describes two bouts of cancer, The Economic Times reported.

World leaders

Hindustan Times reported that Ms. Gandhi writes of noticing Bill Clinton’s “roving eye” at Delhi’s Maurya Sheraton hotel when he visited India as US President. She describes Nicolas Sarkozy’s “arrogant manner” during his India visit, and the warmth of Princess Diana, whom The Times of India said she called the real star.

Modi, Vajpayee and Maneka Gandhi

Ms. Gandhi writes that she has had little real contact with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, though they share some common ground, Hindustan Times reported. She blames his sharp remarks about Jawaharlal Nehru on his “conditioning” in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The Indian Express reported that she writes that Mr. Modi avoids eye contact in meetings.

She also recalls talks with Atal Bihari Vajpayee after the attack on Parliament in 2001, The Times of India reported.

On her sister-in-law Maneka Gandhi, she writes that she saw the two of them as “equal daughters of the house”, but that Maneka Gandhi “probably saw it as a putdown”, NDTV reported.

The BJP and Pranab Mukherjee’s daughter Sharmistha have criticised parts of the book.