The Red Sari: A Novel
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Quoted from ¿Qué hago yo aquí? ( What am I doing here?) by Bruce Chatwin (El Aleph, 2002), p. 330, according to the interview between Chatwin and the cook.
263 The welcome was not always triumphal or loving. The writer Bruce Chatwin, who went with her on part of that tour, was in a car that was mistaken for Indira’s.
Chatwin, op. cit., p. 339.
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266 “Remember everything that makes you strong, hurts. Some are left crushed or damaged, very few grow. Be strong in body and mind and learn to bear things…”
Sanjay Gandhi, by Maneka Gandhi, op. cit.
267 “It is incredible that, in those chaotic circumstances, Sonia could deal with all the housework without it getting her down.”
Indira Gandhi, by Pupul Jayakar, op. cit., p. 355.
269 As if that were not enough, her adversaries smoothed the way for her by mocking her in a manner that could only occur in India.
India Today, 16-30 November, 1978.
269 In one of those fights, Maneka pulled off the ring that Indira had given her for her wedding and thrown it on the floor in fury.
People, Passions, Politics, by Mohammed Yunus (Vikas, 1980), p. 45.
270 “Chaos reigns supreme at home,” … Sanjay still has long periods in jail ahead of him. We have to understand her and forgive her hysteria.”
Indira Gandhi, A Biography, by Pupul Jayakar, op. cit., p. 384.
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279 “I have two alternatives,” Indira had told Krishnamurti, “either I fight or they shoot me like a duck in a fairground stall.”
Indira Gandhi: A Biography, by Pupul Jayakar, op. cit., p. 376.
285 “This was not the strong Indira of the days before the state of emergency…What shadow, what darkness walked beside her?”
Indira Gandhi: A Biography, by Pupul Jayakar, op. cit., p. 403.
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295 By looking carefully among the burned pieces of metal, Indira had realized the enormity of her loss.
Indira, by Katherine Frank, op. cit., p. 446.
296 “The past is past, let’s let it be. But I have to clear up a few things. The falsehoods, the persistent and malicious campaign of calumny must be refuted…”
Letters to An American Friend, by Indira Gandhi (HBJ, New York, 1985).
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302 “Look at her!… Who does she think she is?” she said to one of her husband’s closest friends, talking about Indira.
Quoted from The Sonia Mystique, by Rupa Chatterjee (Virgo Publications, New Delhi, 2000), p. 56.
303 “No one can take Sanjay’s place,” she told her friend Pupul. “He was my son, but he also helped me like an older brother.”
Indira Gandhi: A Biography, by Pupul Jayakar, op. cit., p. 417.
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310 “I fought for him like a tigress, for us and for our children, for the life we had built together, for his vocation in flying, for our friends, and above all, for our freedom: that simple human right that we had preserved so carefully and consistently.”
Rajiv, by Sonia Gandhi, op. cit., p. 6.
315 “He was my Rajiv,” Sonia would say, “we loved each other, and if he thought he should offer to help his mother, I would bow to those forces that were now too powerful for me to fight off, and I would go with him wherever they took him.”
Rajiv, by Sonia Gandhi, op. cit., p. 7.
316 “…There is an air of inevitability about all this, isn’t there?”
Rajiv, by Nicholas Nugent (BBC Books, 1990).
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321 “Before, our world was recognizable and intimate… Time stopped being flexible and every hour that Rajiv spent with us became more and more valuable.”
Rajiv, by Sonia Gandhi, op. cit., p. 7.
323 “You said something…One has to learn to live with it, to it into one’s very being and make it a part of one’s life.”
Indira Gandhi: A Biography, by Pupul Jayakar, op. cit., p. 424.
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339 “Sometimes they’ll say all kinds of nonsense about your grandmother… You have to learn to fight against that kind of provocation… to not take any notice of things that might annoy you, and not let it get to you.”
Rajiv, by Sonia Gandhi, op. cit., p. 8
342 “Do I have to ignore those reports then? I get them every day… What shall I do?”
Indira Gandhi: A Biography, by Pupul Jayakar, op. cit., p. 440.
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353 “If the authorities come into this temple, we are going to give them such a lesson that Indira’s throne will fall down. We’ll cut them to pieces … let them come!”
Part of this sequence is based on Amritsar: Mrs Gandhi’s last battle, by Mark Tully and Satish Jacob (Cape, London, 1985) and on Truth, Love & A Little
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359 “Don’t even consider that option. I’m the leader of a democratic government, not a military one.”
Indira Gandhi, a Personal and Political Biography, by Inder Malhotra (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1989), p. 304.
361 “They returned to Delhi on October 28th and Indira… As usual with her, she brought her wicker stool and files out of her study and started working, glancing occasionally at the television or chatting to us.”
Rajiv, by Sonia Gandhi, op. cit., p. 8.
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365 “I’ve done what I had to do… Now you do what you have to do.”
Amritsar, by Mark Tully and Satish Jacob, op. cit., quoted from Indira, by Katherine Frank, op. cit., p. 493
368 The bullets had perforated the Prime Minister’s liver, lungs, several bones and her spine. “She’s like a sieve,” said one doctor.
Indira, by Katherine Frank, op. cit., p. 494.
369 “There has been an accident at the Prime Minister’s home. Cancel all visits and return to Delhi immediately.”
Rajiv Gandhi: the End of a Dream, by Minhaz Merchant (Penguin India, Delhi, 1991), p. 135.
377 “Please do something. The situation is appalling,” she told her in a frightened voice. Pupul was perplexed.
Pupul Jayakar tells this episode in Indira Gandhi: A Biography, op. cit., p. 493.
378 “What the crowds were after were the goods of the Sikhs, the televisions and fridges, because we are more prosperous than others. Killing and burning people alive was just part of the fun.”
The Dynasty, by Jad Adams and Philip Whitehead, op. cit., p. 319.
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382 “He looked very lost and alone,” Sonia would write. “He very often felt her absence intensely.”
Rajiv, by Sonia Gandhi, op. cit., p. 10.
384 “Above all it’s been because of my mother’s death… No one really knew me, what they have done has been to project the expectations they had of her on to me. They have made me into the symbol of their hopes.”
The Dynasty, by Jad Adams and Philip Whitehead, op. cit., p. 323.
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393 “Sometimes, I let him sleep a few more minutes… Then he would protest, but at least he rested.”
Rajiv, by Sonia Gandhi, op. cit., p. 12.
394 “I see a lot of love in people’s eyes,” said Rajiv, “and friendship, and trust, but above all, hope.”
Op. cit., p. 101.
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402 “What? Here we are to sign an agreement that guarantees their peace and security… and you’re going to tell them that I’m scared to review the guard of honour?”
The Dynasty, by Jad Adams and Philip Whitehead, op. cit., p. 337 (from an interview with the journalist Vir Sanghvi and Brooks Associates).
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419 “He was relaxed,” Sonia would write, “almost relieved. Once again he enjoyed simple, day to day pleasures such as uninterrupted meals, sitting on at table with us, watching a video from time to time instead of shutting himself in his office to work.”
Rajiv, by Sonia Gandhi, op. cit., p. 13.
420 “She doesn’t realize how dangerous this i
s.”
The Nehrus and the Gandhis, an Indian Dynasty, by Tariq Ali (Picador, 1985), p. 324.
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426 “An extraordinary collection of the most pitiless and immoral opportunists to have ever entered the political arena of India,”
Quoted from The Nehrus and the Gandhis, by Tariq Ali, op. cit., p. 320.
430 When they got back to the hotel, he picked up his camera, which he always travelled with and they took a photo of themselves with the automatic button, a thing they had never done before.
Rajiv, by Sonia Gandhi, op. cit., p. 14.
434 “We said goodbye tenderly…” Sonia would remember, “and he left. I stood looking through the crack in the curtains and I saw him go off, until I lost sight of him… This time forever.”
Rajiv, op. cit., p. 15.
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450 “We pulled his leg because of his Gucci shoes…He had so much to live for, so much to do in spite of our scruples and our criticisms.” “For we shall never be young again”, by Sanjoy Hazarika, in The Sunday
Hindustan Times, June 2nd, 1991, quoted from The Sonia Mystique, by Rupa Chatterjee, op. cit., p. 130. 454 “Don’t bother Madam talking about her going into politics. It hurts her a lot. Remember that she’s in mourning for a husband who never wanted to go into politics.”
Quoted from The Sonia Mystique, by Rupa Chatterjee, op. cit., p. 136.
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459 “What do these militants think?” exclaims Priyanka, beside herself. “That we have to go on sacrificing our lives? That’s enough politics!”
Quoted from Sonia, by Racheed Kidwai, op. cit., p. 57.
459 “We thank you personally, and your colleagues, for this generous offer, but it would be better for the government to design its own humanitarian projects and programmes and to finance them directly, honouring the memory of my husband in that way.”
The Sonia Mystique, by Rupa Chatterjee, op. cit., p. 141.
463 In a single afternoon, a monument that has witnessed countless disturbances in history, which has borne the lashing of 400 monsoons is reduced to rubble by the fury of a few fanatics.
Quoted from India after Gandhi, by Ramachandra Guha, op. cit., p. 630.
465 For three years, Sonia has been shut in the house, completely involved in the task of organizing the family archives. She has written a moving book about her husband.
Rajiv, by Sonia Gandhi, op. cit.
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478 “Sonia will not be elected because she is a foreigner… The only thing she wants is to be Prime Minister one day so she can have a comfortable life. That post is like a toy for her, she is not aware of the difficulties involved in it…”
Quoted from The Indian Express, May 14th, 1999.
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488 “At the last session, the honourable Prime Minister laughed at me because I did not answer his question… But it is a subject too important to be answered amid the laughter of his MPs. Now I ask you: What is your position on this matter?… You only mention three words: minimum credible deterrence. Do you think that those three little words make up a serious policy?”
Quoted from Sonia, by Rasheed Kidwai, op. cit., p. 92.
491 “Have you thought about the fate of the minorities in a government led by the BJP? Don’t you want to fight for us any longer?”
Sonia, by Racheed Kidwai, op. cit., p. 165.
493 “Quite simply there wouldn’t be a rally now,” the other one replies. “Without Sonia, there’s no rally; without Sonia, there’s no party.”
Sonia, op. cit., p. 170.
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497 “I wonder if we in Italy would accept a foreigner, and a woman to boot, as leader of a party that has symbolized the struggle for independence against foreign domination and which still enjoys great popular support, although less than before. The fact that a number of Indians trust their destiny to Sonia’s hands says a lot about tolerance in India.”
Quoted from “In Maino Country”, article by Vaiju Naravane, in Frontline, May 8th, 1998.
499 A journalist from the Indian Express.
Nirmala Ganapathy, “Billion baby put through hell”, May 12th, 2000, quoted from India after Gandhi, by R. Guha, op. cit., p. 619.
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538 It has not been an easy journey from the placid existence of a housewife content with her domestic life to the frantic centre of political activity. As she herself defines it.
What India Has Taught Me, by Sonia Gandhi (Nexus Institute, Tillburg, 2007), p. 16.
539 “The family I first became committed to when I got married was restricted to the limits of a home,” Sonia would later write. “Today my loyalty is to a wider family, India, my country, whose people have welcomed me so warmly that they have made me one of them.”
What India…, op. cit., p. 16.
Acknowledgments
As Sonia Gandhi does not like to give interviews or to be talked about in the media, it has not been easy to meet friends or acquaintances who would be ready to share their memories with me. That is why I am specially grateful to the bravest, those who dared to defy the ‘omertá’ imposed by Mrs Gandhi around her. First of all, I want to thank the journalist Josto Maffeo, an old friend from childhood of the Maino sisters when they were living in Orbassano; also in Orbassano, a big thanks to Danilo Quadri, Stefano Maino’s best friend, who shared his memories with me in the same café where he used to play dominoes every afternoon with Sonia’s father ; thanks to Pier Luigi Sacchi, bar owner, friend and neighbor of the Maino family. I am deeply grateful to Christian von Stieglitz, the friend who introduced Sonia to Rajiv when they were studying in Cambridge and who evoked with me the details of their love story. Thanks also to Usha Bhagat, private secretary to Indira Gandhi for almost 20 years (and author of the book ‘Indiraji’) for having shared with me anecdotes and memories of the years spent working in the Prime Minister’s office. Thanks also to sister Domenica Rosso and sister Giovana Negri, Sonia’s teachers in Giaveno boarding school.
All my thanks to Michelguglielmo Torri, Professor of Modern and Contemporary Asian History at the University of Turin, an eminent specialist and lover of India, for his advice, his help and his generosity in investing his precious time in clearing up my doubts and in correcting the text.
In India, my special thoughts for Kamal Pareek, who left us in September 2007. I will always miss his explanations, his availability, his way of telling me about Indian things that are difficult for a Westerner to understand, and above all, the pleasure of his friendship.
I want to express my gratitude to Ashwini Kumar, who told me good anecdotes about the time Indira was in power; thanks to Major Dalbir Singh, national secretary of the All India Congress Committee. I do not want to forget Mani Shankar Aiyar, Rajiv’s old companion and minister of the actual government. Thanks also to Josefina Young, Alex Ehrlich, Farah Khan and Nello del Gatto for their help, their friendship and their hospitality. Without the efficient and valuable support of my editor, Elena Ramirez, throughout the whole process of the book, and without her enthusiasm, this adventure would have been much harder. My whole gratitude to you.
I apologize for not being able to mention here all those who have helped me during this lengthy investigation, in Italy and in India, because, for the reason expressed above, they prefer to remain anonymous. With all my heart, thank you for the information you provided, without which I would not have been able to write this book.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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