"The first time I was invited, I didn't know India. I said as a joke to the ambassador that if I can meet Indira Gandhi, I come," recalled Gina, sitting in her plush villa in an exclusive suburb of Rome. "After two-three days, Mrs Gandhi said, 'Obviously I want to see Ms Lollobrigida.' Then I went and I fell in love with the country so much. To tell you the truth, when I did my photography exhibition, I gave bigger space to India than Italy," she chuckles, her large eyes, heavily made up, glinting with excitement. The Taj Mahal brought tears to her eyes. "You have to be on your knees and thank God there is such beauty in the world. And it was built for a woman."
Her other connection with India is Mother Teresa, whose portrait by Gina on a stamp for San Marino became a hot seller. She shows a medal she cast of Calcutta's saint as her personal tribute. "As a child I saw the war and what it is to be hungry. I promised Mother Teresa that I'll help with all my heart."
Gina then recalls her day talking to and filming Indira Gandhi and getting to know the first family—access was uncomplicated in those pre-paranoid days. "I saw Mrs Gandhi playing with her grandchildren in the garden like a normal grandmother, the same garden where she was killed. We talked like two women because I like to see the personality in my films, not politics." They discussed how a woman could take care of a country and how to make good spaghetti. "She was trying to help people, but people turn against you. " Those were the days of Sanjay Gandhi's rampages, of sterilisation camps and a climate of fear. The Emergency lurked around the corner.
Mrs Gandhi lived in a "modest" home, with Rajiv and Sonia taking just one room, remembers Gina, the simplicity of Indian government bungalows obviously seeming austere to an Italian used to the over-the-top ambience of Roman villas. Rajiv was a charmer and Mrs Gandhi took such good care of Gina that the actress-turned-photographer was surprised to find a posse of 35 policemen outside her hotel in Benaras where she had gone to take photos. "I asked the hotel manager who the police was for and he said it was for me. Mrs Gandhi had sent the police. So I said to myself now that I have police, I will go out even at night to take pictures."
She attributes one of her best photographs of India to Mrs Gandhi—taken in Benaras of a man sitting in the stillness of the dark with a small kerosene lamp, selling his wares. There is fear on his face (presumably at the sight of police) and also astonishment at seeing a white woman photographer roaming the ghats of Benaras at night. An entire wall in Gina's villa is devoted to photographs with generations of famous men and women. But a photo of a dashing Rajiv Gandhi holding a camera and laughing occupies pride of place on a wall studded with the likes of Pavarotti and Castro, Mitterand and Bogart.
"Rajiv never thought he would take the place of his mother but he found the strength in him despite his strong desire to be just a pilot. Poor Sonia. She was a desperate woman and she was suffering. He knew that. She did not even want to be present when I interviewed him. She was very careful and always stepped back when I wanted to take a picture." Clearly Gina empathises strongly with Sonia and her yearning then for a simpler life with a good husband, two kids and a happy home.
Now Gina's in the thick of her second wedding—in these days of serial matrimony, her restraint is noteworthy. And she has outdone Demi Moore—her groom, Javier Rigau y Rafols, the Spanish real estate magnate, is 34 years her junior. "No one contests when an older man is with a younger woman. Love doesn't have age. To me it seems very normal. Besides a woman has a longer sexual life." At this stage in her life, Gina doesn't mince words: "Young men make me feel young. With them I feel like a normal woman, not an icon. That is what I need."
