My first conversation with Indira Gandhi was in French: Sonia

Congress President Sonia Gandhi said her first conversation with her mother-in-law Indira Gandhi was in French.

“I met Indira Gandhi in 1965. She started conversing with me in French in our first conversation,” the Congress President said in an interview with India Today in Allahabad.

She said she was terribly nervous while meeting Indira Gandhi — the only female Prime Minister of India till date — as she was from a completely different culture and background.

Recalling her first meet with her mother-in-law, Sonia said: “She (Indira Gandhi) wanted to meet me. She asked Rajiv to bring me along. The date was decided. It was Friday.”

Sonia said that she had declined to meet Indira Gandhi a little while before she and Rajiv Gandhi entered the city.

“I said I cannot meet your mother. I will not. But I did. The next day I firmly said I will meet your mother… I met her at the high commissioner’s place. Of course terribly nervous but pleasantly surprised because I could not speak English..”

The Congress president said that Indira Gandhi was completely different from what she looked like. “She (Indira Gandhi) understood my difficulties with the culture, language and she conversed with me in French.”

Gandhi, who is known for her sparse television appearances, broke her silence to India Today for the first time in nine years.

She also said that she would not have been in politics had she not been with Indira Gandhi.