Congress Parliamentary Party Chairperson Sonia Gandhi made her debut on X on October 24, 2026, releasing a video retrospective that recounts her initial, chance encounter with former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in Cambridge, England.
The archival-backed digital rollout precedes the November 10, 2026 release of her long-awaited memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, published by HarperCollins India. The 544-page volume traces her life from post-war Veneto, Italy, through her arrival in the United Kingdom, her marriage to Rajiv Gandhi on February 25, 1968, and her decades at the center of Indian public life.
Finding Familiar Flavors in Post-War Cambridge
Before her introduction to the man who would lead India from 1984 to 1989, a young Sonia was simply a student navigating an unfamiliar culinary landscape. In the promotional video shared on her newly launched social media handles, she recalls that the food in England during her student days was difficult to palate, prompting her to search out establishments offering dishes closer to her native Italian tastes.
In a small Greek restaurant in Cambridge my journey of love began. Rajiv and I created a world filled with love, laughter and memories. On 10th November, I share that world with you. pic.twitter.com/zvN5Rqqstf
That search led her to the Varsity Restaurant, a Greek eatery frequently visited by European and Indian students alike. Introduced by a mutual friend, the pair struck up an immediate rapport. “When I first met him, I felt almost immediately that you know he was someone I would really love to be with. And, of course, I learned that it was the same for him,” Sonia recounts in the footage.
That initial meeting blossomed into a companionship built on shared outings, parties, and sightseeing around Cambridge, far removed from the political spotlight that later defined their lives.
A Digital Rollout and Editorial Prelude
The social media debut began days earlier on October 22, 2026, when Sonia Gandhi joined Instagram to unveil the first physical copies of the memoir. Surrounded by publishers and her daughter, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, she unboxed the hardback volumes and exchanged boxes of celebratory sweets.
“It is a story of love, duty, loss and finding a place to belong. I look forward to sharing it with you,” she wrote in her inaugural Instagram post. Party colleagues, including general secretary K.C. Venugopal and communications chief Jairam Ramesh, amplified the launch across digital channels, noting that the release has drawn intense public interest.
The book’s journey to print weathered preliminary turbulence. Earlier negotiations involved an impasse with Penguin Random House India before HarperCollins India stepped in to secure domestic publication rights for the November release. Alfred A. Knopf handles the rollout in the United States.
Navigating Public Duty and Private Loss
While the memoir centers heavily on the personal dimensions of her romance and family life, it also addresses the profound historic fractures that reshaped her trajectory. The narrative spans the tragic assassinations that struck the Gandhi family, including Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984 and Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in 1991.
“It was heartbreak and loss that threw me into the public world of politics. Up till then I had guarded my privacy fiercely,” Sonia Gandhi stated in promotional materials released via her US publisher. Stepping into the political arena, she eventually became the longest-serving president of the Congress, leading the party through power transitions up to the 2014 general election.
As the November 10 publication date approaches, the memoir promises to offer a rare, introspective window into the human motivations behind decades of political history, anchoring its expansive political chronicle in a simple table at a Cambridge restaurant.
