New Delhi: Sonia Gandhi has recalled an uncomfortable memory involving former US President Bill Clinton during his 2000 visit to India. In her new memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, she says she noticed Clinton looking at attractive women at a reception hosted by then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
“The Monica Lewinsky scandal had subsided a little by then, but old habits die hard; at the reception held by Prime Minister Vajpayee in his honour, I noticed him every now and then surreptitiously sizing up the more striking women present,” Gandhi writes.
She says she met Clinton at the Sheraton hotel, where he was staying with his daughter Chelsea and his delegation. According to Gandhi, Clinton was friendly and confident, but he seemed more interested in sharing his own views on Kashmir than listening to India’s side.
“President Bill Clinton was staying at the Sheraton hotel with his daughter, Chelsea, and his delegation in 2000 when I called on him with our foreign minister. Friendly, informal, and exuding confidence, he appeared more keen to give us his own views and predictions about Kashmir—‘a nuclear flashpoint’, in his words, ‘one of the most dangerous places on earth’—than to pay attention to our point of view,” she writes.
Meetings With World Leaders
The book also talks about Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2008 visit to India. Gandhi says the then French President came without Carla Bruni, who was then his partner. She writes that he may have been advised not to bring her because they were not married, which could have been awkward at official events.
At a banquet, the wife of then Vice President Mohammad Ansari asked Sarkozy about his marriage plans. Gandhi says he did not seem uncomfortable and happily spoke about his relationship while messaging Bruni on his phone.
“It was said that he (Sarkozy) had been advised not to bring her (Bruni) because they were unmarried which would have been awkward at official functions. Seated at the banquet table, I was amused when the wife of our Vice President Mohammad Ansari, seated next to him, proceeded to quiz him good-naturedly about his marital plans. Was he going to get married? And if so, had the date been decided? Was he missing her? President Sarkozy seemed unperturbed by the cross-examination, even eager to share details of his love life, answering all her questions while continuously messaging his Carla on his phone,” Gandhi writes.
She later met Sarkozy and Bruni at a private dinner hosted by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his wife. By then, the two had married. Gandhi describes Bruni as graceful and beautiful, while saying Sarkozy spoke to Manmohan Singh in a manner she found arrogant.
“By this time President Sarkozy and Carla Bruni had tied the knot and made their appearance together. He was obviously besotted with his tall and beautiful wife of Italian and French descent, who had been a popular singer and songwriter in Europe, as well as a top model. All eyes were on her as she glided into the room in an elegant long gown, graceful and slim, demure and blue-eyed,” she writes.
“She spoke cordially but infrequently—while her husband held forth, expounding his views to our prime minister on what India should do in what I felt was a rather arrogant manner, unmindful of the fact that he was talking to someone more senior, more experienced and more knowledgeable,” Gandhi adds.
Memories Of Princess Diana
The memoir also recalls Sonia Gandhi’s close association with Britain’s royal family, especially Princess Diana. Gandhi writes that Diana was charming, graceful and magnetic, and remembers attending her wedding to Prince Charles in 1981.
When Diana and Charles visited India in 1992, Gandhi says their marriage was clearly going through difficulties. She recalls meeting them for tea on the same day Diana posed alone in front of the Taj Mahal—the famous “love bench” photograph.
Gandhi also remembers Diana meeting her Italian-speaking mother. When Diana asked why the older woman was quiet, Gandhi’s daughter Priyanka explained that she had been told not to speak because she knew only Italian. Diana laughed and greeted her warmly in Italian.
“Piacere, come stai?” Diana said, according to Gandhi.
Gandhi says Diana later waved and called out, “Ciao, Nonna!” She also recalls meeting Diana again in London, first at a tea and later by chance at a hairdresser’s. That, Gandhi writes, was the last time she saw Diana.
