'In India, Everything Has Two Lives. Even Scams.'

The Quattrocchis live in a fairly fashionable area in Milan. His businesses have gone south lately. From guns he's moved to real estate.

'In India, Everything Has Two Lives. Even Scams.'
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I rang the door bell and a pleasant, English-speaking housekeeper let me in. As she called "Sir," Quattrocchi burst in, sporting a silk dressing gown, showing his 68 years on his face along with fluster. "No madam, I don't want to say anything. Please leave," he shouted angrily. "There is nothing more here," he said, slamming the door. I was left to contemplate fate and the Rajasthani chest on the landing. The Quattrocchi family—an Italian grand clan of four daughters, grandchildren, brothers-in-law—is spread over two large floors and other properties nearby. Maria insists that her husband is a "gentleman and very polite" but tired of the "harassment". If I were to visit not as a journalist, she would invite me for pasta, she promises. "We love India. We have so many friends there." But today India means only Bofors for the Quattrocchis.

From allegedly representing Snamprogetti in the 1980s in India—one of the largest Italian engineering and petrochemicals companies, a company official says he was never an "employee" but a "freelancer"—to buying and selling properties, Quattrocchi's career has gone south somewhat, thanks to Bofors. Officials at the chamber of commerce in Milan say that he now owns two companies—Ruitor Construction Srl and Cantu Immobilire Src. Both deal in real estate.

His brother-in-law George, who answers the other phone under Quattrocchi's name, tells me a day later that Ottavio has left "for the mountains to ski and will return only next week." But Maria answers the phone in Milan and it is clear from the conversation that her husband is sitting right there. Maria takes up the cudgels on his behalf, defending and lamenting in equal measure the latest crisis. She calls the charges against Quattrocchi "rubbish" and wants the "old story" to end somehow. "The case is finished. The courts have said there was no corruption in the Bofors case. Even the British waited for two years but there was no evidence. They are trying to create a case without a case," she says, well up on the latest twists and turns from the internet. "Even if you are not sympathetic to my husband, there is a question of justice. Isn't there an end to this? I feel sick and disgusted." The case against the Hindujas is over, but "it exists only for my husband," she says. In all these years, not a single investigator from India has come forward to interview or question Ottavio Quattrocchi, she asserts.

The reason for the hounding, according to Maria, is her family's friendship with Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi whom they met in Italy more than 20 years ago. No, she is not "Sonia's cousin" as some media reports claim. "Those are fairy tales. There is no family connection," asserts the indignant materfamilias. But she won't say how they met India's political royalty. "It is not a love story for you," she jokes.

But clearly, she is enraged that the Opposition won't leave Sonia alone even after she lost her husband to the violent swirls of Indian politics. "The poor chap died for India," she says of Rajiv. Alternately angry and charming, Maria squarely blames the Opposition for feeding the Bofors ghost. "They keep digging up. But only one side. Only rubbish. His side (Ottavio's) is never reported," she says. It would be better if the Opposition leaders "meditated" and left the stage to the younger generation. "They feed the newspapers so many stories. I don't even recognise ourselves in it. It has gone on for 20 years. It is incredible," she says. But she doesn't let it affect her life. "It doesn't bother me—this tamasha. They can say whatever they like." But then she asks: "How long are people interested in reading the same stories?"

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