Congress MP Sonia Gandhi has recalled former prime minister and mother-in-law Indira Gandhi’s “explosions of temper,” which made her “quake in her seat” – until she got to know her well.
From a staffer who was made to stand in a corner to a party member facing the wall, Indira Gandhi’s anger could “freeze them into numbness”, Sonia Gandhi wrote in her book.
“What I found most alarming was my mother-in-law’s occasional explosions of temper. They could freeze the staff into numbness. “I was not yet familiar with who was who in the political pantheon, but the fact that he was within our private space signalled that he must have been a Congress Party senior. I was with Amie Aunty (Amie Crishna) for a good half an hour, and when I walked back, the man in white was still stuck to the wall as ordered by my mother-in-law, I learnt later,” she wrote. On one such occasion, she pushed her thali to the other side of the long dining table in a fit of anger. Such outbursts would unsettle me, reminding me of my father’s explosions. Rajiv and Sanjay would wait silently for the unpleasant moment to be over,” she wrote in the memoir While I’d feel perturbed and shaken.
On one occasion, a member of the staff who had forgotten to remind her of an important appointment, and not for the first time, was made to stand in a corner of the room while others hurriedly passed by, all feeling rather embarrassed,” she said. In another instance, Gandhi said she noticed a “kurta-dhoti-clad individual standing immobile in the corner, staring at the wall”. The Congress MP mentioned that there were instances when Indira Gandhi refused to deal with an “offending individual and ignored them, leaving them in a state of suspense for days”. “She would occasionally flare up at mealtimes, when in Parliament there had been “a particularly unpleasant exchange with the opposition. The former PM would usually find relief in domestic chores, including asking Amie Crishna to bring out boxes of old photographs, which she’d then sort through by date, according to Gandhi. The Congress leader said that Indira Gandhi’s “tense moments” reduced once she became a grandmother.
