Sonia Gandhi recalls losing first child; shares how Indira consoled her and Rajiv Gandhi

New Delhi: Congress leader Sonia Gandhi and her husband, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, suffered a major heartbreak and a deeply personal tragedy soon after marriage, as their newborn child passed away hours after birth.

Sonia, in her autobiography titled ‘Belonging: A Journey of Love’, shares that the environment of joy and happiness that prevailed in the Gandhi household over her pregnancy turned sombre and macabre as she and Rajiv lost their first child, despite the newborn appearing healthy.

She also recounts how her mother-in-law and former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi cut short her official tours and took time out to console and comfort the grieving young parents.

According to the memoir, Sonia gave birth to a baby boy on January 18, 1969, and it was a preterm delivery. This happened about a year before Rahul Gandhi's birth in 1970.

"I heard the baby's first cry as he was placed in the incubator. Later Rajiv took me to see him, a tiny, perfectly formed boy, with thick, black hair and long, slim fingers," NDTV quoted her saying in the memoir.

"We fell in love with him immediately," she adds.

Hours later, they were told by the doctors that their child was no more.

Penning down the excruciating experience, she says that the shock and fear of losing their first child was utterly difficult for both of them to swallow.

"No, it was not possible! Why, why, I kept asking. Both of us were shocked and heartbroken," she writes.

Rajiv Gandhi also grieved and broke down over the child’s loss and cried along with her despite his “stiff upper lip” upbringing.

She further recalls Indira Gandhi truncating her official tours and rushing back to the hospital to comfort and help them overcome the irreparable loss.

"She embraced us, her eyes red and swollen," she says, recounting how the former Prime Minister sat with them.

The Congress leader also shares the ‘anguished moments’ of bidding goodbye to their deceased child and how she refused the proposal of disposing of the body in a river, as was the traditional practice prevalent then.

According to the memoir, the prospect of laying the infant’s body to rest was debated at home multiple times, and finally it was decided that the child be buried at Feroze Gandhi's farm in South Delhi's Mehrauli.

"It was a painful and agonising option, but there was no other way," she further says in the memoir and also adds that for a long time, she and Rajiv would pause and place a flower each time near the bougainvillaea bush, where the child was buried.

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