From India Today Archives (1991): The Gandhis: Living with Rajiv’s death

(NOTE: This article was first published in the India Today issue dated June 30, 1991)

An eerie silence has settled like a shroud over 10 Janpath since the tragedy that befell its inhabitants. Now protected from public access by a dense security cordon, this area has acquired the image of a forbidding fortress.

Two weeks after the brutal moment that destroyed their lives in a blinding instant, in the spacious bungalow, Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka are still trying to piece together their existence. A life without Rajiv? This is a big question mark for Sonia, Priyanka and Rahul. A question they will never find the answer to. For this close-knit family who always remained inside a heavily guarded fortress, Rajiv was the center of their existence. He shaped Sonia’s life and was the idol of the children.

Suddenly Sonia finds herself living in a void. He has to do things he has studiously avoided until now. Like walking through the house to the housing office to welcome dignitaries, Congress(I) leaders and staff. In the past, there was always a sharp distinction between the office and the home. After spending hours arguing with the party members, it was Rajiv who returned to the house where Sonia lit the house fire. Now it is Sonia who meets people in her husband’s office. Appointment requests have already started pouring in to 10 Janpath offices.

In fact, Sonia had barely reached home after the funeral when people started following her there and heads of state started calling, saying they wanted to express their condolences in person. Tired, Sonia and the children stayed up until 11 o’clock at night, receiving the dignitaries who constantly came.

At this point, it was decided to set a time for Sonia to receive visitors, as she could not receive people throughout the day. Unless her close friends are stopping by to spend time with her. Or like when President R. Venkataraman came to visit Sonia. It is a seemingly calm Sonia who greets visitors. Ironically, there are always visitors who break down while recounting their memories of Rajiv Gandhi. But Sonia is patient, even though each visitor is a painful reminder of times past and never to be.

He now meets with people every day between five and seven in the evening, in five- to ten-minute appointments. The office shortlists the names and submits them to it for approval. Request to all visitors: “The meeting has been arranged solely for you to express your condolences. Please do not upset the Lady.” This demand is made especially to Congress(I) MPs and party leaders; Some of them still hope that he will change his mind and enter politics.

“Nothing could upset her more. She is suffering from her husband, whom she does not want to enter into politics. How can people be so insensitive?” He asks a close friend and adds, “He needs to be alone to make peace with life.” What the family has a hard time with is coping with this situation. Because not only are they pained by the death, they also find it unbearable to forget the way he was killed.

The trauma that Rahul and Priyanka go through is the sheer brutality of Rajiv’s death. “I wish magazines had not printed photographs of Rajiv Gandhi’s dead body,” says Sonia’s close friend Rupika Chawla. Rupika and Sonia met regularly at the National Gallery of Modern Art and later at the National Museum, where Sonia worked for hours restoring the oil and canvas paintings for which she was passionate. Friends like Rupika are now trying to save Sonia from her despair. It’s like telling him about oil paintings. Sonia responds by asking a question, but then goes silent again.

The bloody image of the father thrown upside down by the children never leaves their minds, and the most important question in their minds is: “Who did it?” Priyanka is particularly traumatized. “Priyanka always called her father ‘the most handsome man’. And they couldn’t even see their father’s face,” recalls her friend Kanta Dogra, who has been like a mother to the family since Mrs Gandhi’s death. And now they have to live with the horrific sight of a blood-soaked, mutilated body.

According to their friends, the children, especially Priyanka, were reading all newspapers and magazines with great appetite. He reads every word written about his father, especially the stories about the progress of the investigative team investigating the assassination. Rahul often goes to the office where the staff is located or to senior officials in the security agency to discuss the reason for the assassination. A friend confesses: “It’s as if their turbulent minds would be put to rest if they found answers to who was behind the assassination and why it was done.”

Friends are an important source of comfort for children. Friends who spend most of the day with them or sit back in the room when Priyanka and Rahul go home to their mother. Just sitting with him for two hours where he meets people. Priyanka who almost makes a point of being there especially when politicians come or people from Amethi come.

Like Sonia, Priyanka knows many Amethi women and children by name. Friends say that Amethi actually has a strong emotional bond and Sonia would not like it to be broken. For her, it will always be her husband’s constituency. A place where they nurture together with compassion and care.

Meanwhile, all Sonia has to live with are painful memories. Memories flash before his eyes every time he sifts through the mail that’s pouring in by the thousands. People from all over the world, known and unknown, write him condolence notes.

She tells him her impressions of her husband. Possibly wanting to keep herself busy, Sonia spends most of her time sorting mail. She had done this before to help her mother-in-law when Sanjay died and to help Rajiv with the mail after Mrs Gandhi was murdered.

All letters need to be answered and Sonia is very particular about this. A close friend recalls how the children enthusiastically sat down with their parents and compiled a list of people to whom they would send New Year’s greetings. “Sonia was always very meticulous. She wrote the cards herself, chose the words.”

Now she carefully marks her ‘thank you’ notes, chooses her language, and often writes them in her own hand. And considering the large volume of mail, this is an enormous and time-consuming task. Thanking the Congress(I) for its consoling words, he said that he and his children were “very touched by the depth of your concern and the love and affection you have shown us”.

Stating that the assassination was her husband’s ultimate sacrifice for his beloved country, she hopes it “will be a source of strength for every member of Congress and woman.” The Congress Party is very dear to him and is geared towards realizing his dream of a strong, united India.”

These are long and lonely evenings. Because this was the time Sonia, Priyanka and Rahul were really looking forward to; It was when Rajiv returned home and they all huddled together on the sofa, the dogs sitting around them and waiting for Rajiv to take them out to the grass for a run. .

As Amitabh Bachchan, who now visits the family frequently just to be with the children who provide comfort, says: “(Life) is a period of nothingness. It’s a period when you don’t know what to do, what to say. What can be done?” Are you doing that? But they are being brave. “I couldn’t impose such restrictions.”

Dinner time is especially painful. Pandit Nehru had passed down the tradition that no matter how great the work pressure, dinner should always be a meal shared with the family. Rajiv too forgot about politics and tensions the moment he reached home.

Instead he would relax with Sonia and the kids who were always watching videos. The family had a love of music and movies. Sometimes they would sit there and eat sandwiches because they were too lazy to get up and go to the table. Now dinner is like an ordeal. Each is aware of the other’s thoughts, but they are careful not to voice them.

For the past six months, Rajiv’s busy schedule did not allow him to come home until midnight. But the children always waited for him. While on holiday in Delhi, Rahul would often go to the airport to pick up his father, who was returning home after a tough election campaign. She even accompanied Rajiv to the Bihar election tour to spend more time with his father, friends said. A family friend explains: “They had a very special bond.

The same thing happened with Sonia. A deep and interdependent relationship.” A late sleeper, Sonia was normally awake until Rajiv returned home. She suffers from asthma – and the attacks have returned – and it is difficult for her to fall asleep. Now her mother Paola stays with her. It is her relationship with her that has helped her pull her life together. It suddenly changed when the assassin pressed the button tied to his waist.

Therein lies the tragic irony. Italian bahu Sonia, who has learned, lived and inculcated all things Indian for 23 years, now suddenly finds herself rudderless and anchorless.

Kanta Dogra recalls that over the years, Sonia became closer to Mrs Gandhi than to her own mother. And now there is no one left from the family he learned and loved to live for. Alone, without people who give meaning to his life and existence.

By nature reluctant to trust anyone except her husband, Sonia’s true friends and companions have always been children: Priyanka and Rahul. Sonia, who raised herself in a strict and disciplined manner, did not want the same for her children. Disciplinary, yes, but not strict.

Still conscious of the element of discipline, Sonia is sure that she wants Rahul to return to Harvard and complete his graduation. It doesn’t matter that this leaves him and Priyanka alone. This is perhaps the only decision Sonia makes regarding an uncertain and insecure future.

Children’s education was always a fetish for both Sonia and Rajiv. They were sure that the children should go to boarding school, so Rahul was sent to Doon School and Priyanka was enrolled in Welhams. The element of discipline emerged once again; Priyanka had to return the puppy gifted to her by her aunt because Priyanka kept saying that she could not go to the hostel because there would be no one to look after the puppy at that time.

Since the assassination, Sonia has been wandering around the house as a shadow of her original self. A lifeless figure dressed in white. Her sari pallu is wrapped around her head whenever she is with people. There is no external contact except newspapers and that too only the parts Priyanka tells him to read. Priyanka also participates in most of the phone calls.

The only time Sonia left the vicinity of the house – apart from attending Rajiv’s last ashes immersion rites – was when she went to her samadhi at Shanti Van on the death anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru on May 27.

Even terveen (prayer ceremony for the deceased on the 13th day after death) was a quiet affair. Only a few close friends and family were invited. After the prayer ceremony – when Ganesh was worshiped and ganga jal was sprinkled on the house – Rahul offered food to the 21 Brahmins and they blessed him.

Friends say Sonia will observe the traditional 40 days of mourning, in keeping with the Hindu traditions she has now come to believe in. “No one had asked her to do this, but I noticed that she took off all her jewelry by herself. We will slowly bring her back to wearing colors other than white,” says a close family friend.

His friends suggested that he take the children and go to Italy for a while. But they say Sonia was reluctant. He thinks that is where India’s destiny lies. “He might take up social work,” says relative Gautam Kaul. Since there are memorial foundations for Indira Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, one of the things she wants to do is create a memorial for her husband.

But for now, the family is trying to recover. As one of her friends puts it, Sonia wonders if dying as a pilot would have been a better and preferable ending than the path Rajiv eventually took.

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