Sonia Gandhi’s memoir recalls her early bond with the Bachchan family.
Teji Bachchan hosted Sonia’s wedding ceremonies and supported her through personal loss.
Amitabh Bachchan entered politics in 1984 at Rajiv Gandhi’s request.
Sonia Gandhi’s memoir Belonging – A Journey of Love looks back at her early years in India and the warmth she received from Amitabh Bachchan’s family. The Bachchans had been close to the Gandhis for years, with Amitabh and Rajiv sharing a friendship that began long before either became a public figure. However, Sonia’s account focuses largely on her personal bond with the family rather than the history of that friendship.
Teji Bachchan became a mother figure to Sonia Gandhi
When Sonia arrived in Delhi in January 1968 ahead of her marriage to Rajiv, she was welcomed at the Bachchan family home. Rajiv, his brother Sanjay and Amitabh had come to receive her at the airport. Teji Bachchan greeted her with a warm embrace, an experience Sonia recalled with affection.
“I felt at once relieved and reassured. She was to become a mother figure, ever ready to help, teach, and counsel me,” she wrote.
Harivansh Rai Bachchan also helped Sonia navigate life in India, occasionally teaching her Hindi. She remembered his advice: “You must know, Sonia beti, (child), that in this country it is not what you are that counts; it is what people think you to be.”
She later reflected on the significance of his words, writing, “But in later years I remembered Uncle Bachchan’s words. How right he’d been—a poet and a sensitive man, having himself experienced the fickleness of the public,”
Amitabh Bachchan’s home became Sonia’s ‘maayka’
The Bachchan residence also hosted Sonia’s mehendi and phoolon-ka-gehena ceremonies before her wedding. She described the arrangement as being treated like the daughter of the house.
Teji continued to support Sonia through difficult times. After Sonia and Rajiv lost their first child, who was born prematurely, Teji gifted her a puppy named Reshma to help her cope with the loss.
Amitabh Bachchan and Rajiv Gandhi’s friendship
Amitabh later entered politics at Rajiv’s request after Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984. He said in a 1998 conversation with Simi Garewal, “The fact that Mr Rajiv Gandhi and his family and our family had been known to each other and shared a friendly relationship over several years prompted me to stand by a friend, and that was the sentiment.”
Sonia’s memoir does not dwell on the later relationship between the two families. Amitabh, however, described Rajiv as his “best friend” in a 1999 conversation with Vir Sanghvi and called him a “noble, decent” man who was “most unsuited” to politics. Despite rumours of a rift, neither family has publicly discussed its cause.
