The love story of Rajiv Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi started from Cambridge. Sonia Gandhi was first seen by Rajiv Gandhi in a restaurant near Cambridge and from here their love story started. Rajiv Gandhi had made many efforts to meet Sonia and spend time with her. The story of his love story is recorded in Ashwini Bhatnagar’s book ‘Lotus Years’.
Simi Grewal also made a documentary film India’s Rajiv on Rajiv Gandhi, in which Rajiv himself discussed his Cambridge days. Even after being the son of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Rajiv used to do many things to meet his expenses in Cambridge. So let’s know what was special in this love story of Rajiv and Sonia.
Students used to come to the Greek restaurant near Cranbridge and it was here that Rajiv and Sonia also met for the first time. Rajiv Gandhi used to get very little money at that time and he had to work a lot to meet his expenses.
Simi Garewal had told in the documentary film India’s Rajiv Gandhi that he used to get very little money from home and he had to work there to meet the shortage of money.
Rajiv Gandhi had told that in Cambridge he used to do loading-unloading work on trucks. He used to save ice cream and also worked on the construction site many times. To sit with Sonia Gandhi, the Greek restaurant owner had to pay double the amount to Rajiv Gandhi. Rajiv had told that these expenses used to come out of his earnings.
Rajiv used to cycle to meet Sonia, while he had an old Volkswagen at that time, but did not have the money to put petrol in it.The meeting of Rajiv and Sonia in Cambridge is also mentioned in the biography written by famous journalist Rashid Kidwai on Sonia. For the first time, Rajiv wrote a poem on her beauty on a napkin and sent it to Sonia through a waiter.
A German friend of Rajiv and Sonia acted as a messenger between the two. Let us tell that Rajiv did not tell Sonia till the end that he is the son of the Prime Minister of India. After a long time, a picture of Indira Gandhi was printed in a newspaper, then Rajiv showed Sonia and told that she was his mother.After this, an Indian student studying in Cambridge told him that Indira was the Prime Minister of India and then Sonia came to know that she was in love with such an important person. (All photos: Social Media)
