Papa looking down on his beautiful Sonia: Rahul on mother's memoir

With his mother Sonia Gandhi’s memoir set to hit the stands later this year, Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi on Thursday, 20 August said he was proud that it would be read by the millions who love her, and acknowledged how difficult it must have been for someone as private as her to tell the world her story.

Sonia Gandhi will release her memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, in November, in which she will share her intimate account of marrying into one of India’s most powerful political families, the tragedy of losing her husband Rajiv Gandhi that drew her into the ‘public world of politics’, and her decision to turn down the prime minister’s post in 2004, among other events.

The book will hit stands on 10 November, publisher Alfred A Knopf, an American imprint of Penguin Random House, announced on Tuesday. Penguin Random House India, however, has not confirmed the book’s release date in India.

In a message posted on X, Rahul Gandhi said, ‘Mama, I last saw you and Papa together more than 35 years ago. Since the day Papa left, I have watched you face everything life threw at you with never-ending courage and dignity.

‘Only Priyanka (Gandhi Vadra) and I really know what you have been through, and how difficult your life after Papa truly was.

‘I am happy, and so proud, that your story — ‘Belonging: A Journey of Love’ — will finally be read by the millions of people who love you. I know how hard it was for someone as private as you to tell the world your beautiful story.’

On his father's birthday, Rahul Gandhi said he could see ‘Papa smiling and looking down proudly at his beautiful Sonia’. Rajiv Gandhi was born on this day in 1944.

According to the Alfred A Knopf website, the memoir begins in Cambridge, England where, in 1965, 19-year-old student Sonia Maino ‘falls in love at first sight with the handsome young man she’s destined to marry: Rajiv Gandhi’.

Sonia Gandhi (79), who has rarely shared details of her private life in public forums, narrates her journey ‘from her childhood in post-war Italy, to the romance that brings her to India, to the shattering losses that will reshape not only her own future but also that of her adopted home’.

The book also recounts how Sonia Gandhi declined to become prime minister after the Congress-led alliance won the 2004 elections and instead chose Manmohan Singh to lead the government.

Among other things, she writes about her introduction to her ‘formidable mother-in-law’ and India’s first female prime minister, Indira Gandhi. She recalls learning to speak Hindi, wearing saris and embracing Indian cuisine. In her early years as the wife of Rajiv Gandhi, then a commercial airline pilot, and the mother of two young children, Sonia Gandhi witnessed the death of her brother-in-law Sanjay Gandhi in a plane crash, followed by the assassination of Indira Gandhi.

The book aims to offer an insider’s perspective on India’s economic and social changes over six decades.

Sonia Gandhi has said that writing about her life meant opening herself up and sharing experiences that she had kept deep inside, as she reflected on the heartbreak and loss that drew her into politics.

It was heartbreak and loss that thrust her into the public world of politics. ‘Up till then, I had guarded my privacy fiercely,’ Sonia Gandhi said in a statement issued on Tuesday by Alfred A Knopf. ‘Writing about my life did not come easily to me. It meant opening myself up, sharing moments and experiences I had always held deep inside.’

With PTI inputs