CONGRATULATORY letters have been pouring into 10, Janpath by the score, felicitating the Gandhi family on the forthcoming marriage of Priyanka Gandhi with businessman Robert Wadehra, 26. None of the letters have been acknowledged and no official announcement made so far, but sources have it that the wedding is not far off.
For the moment at least, it appears that politics is not on Priyankas mind. Nor has it been for the last two years, ever since she met Wadehra at a party in the capital. Short and stocky in contrast with the tall, slim Priyanka, the businessman (who owes his anglicised name to an Anglo-Indian mother) is very much a man-about-town, part of the jet-set party circuit.
The two are regularly spotted (sometimes holding hands) at parties, discotheques and five-star restaurants, with security personnel lurking obtrusively in the background. Priyanka spends much of her time at the Wadehras Friends Colony residence, say neighbours, who find the resulting traffic blockades an irritant.
The youngest Gandhi is tipped to join politics in future. Unlike her brother, who went to study in the US and later in the UK, she chose to remain in India. Aggressive and self-assured, she speaks fluent Hindi without a trace of an accent, thanks to the efforts of her tutor and former Congress MP, Ratnakar Pandey. She is, says a regular visitor to 10, Janpath, every bit the grand-daughter of Indira Gandhi. Priyanka loves crowds and connects with them easily. At public functions, she often prompts her mother to do namaste or wave. Fond of jeans and T-shirts at home, she is traditionally attired in public, like her mother.
Priyanka is concerned about the progress of the Jain Commission in probing her fathers assassination. She has attended several hearings, at which she took copious notes. Clippings of the proceedings are sent to her and she maintains a scrap-book. Priyanka oversaw the design of her mothers book, Rajiv Gandhi.
Her lack of interest in academics pretty much follows the family tradition. A graduate in psychology from Delhis Jesus and Mary College, she taught for a while as a primary school teacher but gave that up. She has shown no inclination towards any kind of career or vocation and speculation is that she may enter politics after a few years of marriage.
