Quoted from the article:-
"By Rajiv’s second year in power, stories about Sonia’s shopping sprees began to circulate in Delhi’s drawing rooms. The most dangerous gossips in Delhi are traditionally the sellers of shawls and carpets who wander from house to house with their wares. So it was from a Kashmiri shawl-seller that I first heard that the prime minister’s wife was buying shahtoosh shawls in large quantities. It was not an environmental crime then to wear shahtoosh but to buy a shahtoosh shawl was the equivalent of buying expensive fur. Only very rich Indians could afford to. Then, from diplomatic sources in distant Moscow, where the prime minister and his wife made their first foreign visit, came the story of Sonia buying an expensive sable coat. In Mrs Gandhi’s time, this kind of personal expenditure would either not have happened or would have happened so discreetly that nobody ever found out. Sonia’s sable coat travelled back on the prime minister’s flight, and people saw it and talked about it. According to the story I heard, Sonia’s taste in fur coats was so refined that she was not satisfied with Soviet tailoring and had the coat sent to Rome to be redesigned by Italian fashion house Fendi. These were the stories that are never possible to confirm, but gossip rarely needs confirmation to be believed.
"Other small sartorial signs of a gradual move away from ‘socialism’ soon became evident. Rajiv started to wear an expensive, gold Rolex watch and carry a Mont Blanc pen in the pocket of his humble khadi kurta. This elegant new touch was imitated instantly by other young members of the Congress party. The style was not just imitated but embellished. Suddenly it became fashionable to add a pair of Gucci loafers to clothes made of Gandhian khadi. India had been through so many decades of enforced socialist behaviour that in the eighties there were not many Indians who would have recognized international designer labels. Certainly, there were no journalists in Delhi who had any acquaintance with them but what they did start to notice soon was that Rajiv’s friends were all doing very well for themselves. Rumours of crony capitalism, an expression we only half understood then, started to spread. Contracts to export rice to the Soviet Union were said to have been handed to some of their friends and all sorts of other deals to others.
"To those of us who still saw Rajiv and Sonia’s friends in the drawing rooms of Delhi, it was instantly obvious that they suddenly had a lot of money. No longer did they travel economy when they went abroad and no longer did they stay with friends in London and New York. They stayed in expensive hotels and this was so new and wondrous an experience for them that they liked slipping names like Claridges and the Meurice into accounts of their travels. I remember on a trip to Washington being astounded to discover that one of Rajiv’s poorest friends spent a month occupying two suites in Watergate hotel. Friends of Rajiv who had lived on salaries that barely enabled them to afford a small Indian car now drove around in foreign cars and in their drawing rooms suddenly appeared expensive works of art and antiques. Nobody asked too many questions because Rajiv was still very popular but rumours of ‘deals’ started to filter into newspaper offices.
"Years later, when Sonia Gandhi became the most powerful political leader in India, she tried to distance herself from the Quattrocchis by pretending that she barely knew them. But in the year that the Bofors scandal shattered Rajiv’s image of being Mr Clean, everyone from Delhi’s drawing rooms to its corridors of power knew that the Quattrocchis were as close to the Gandhis as it was possible to be. They went on holidays together and Quattrocchi liked to flaunt his closeness to the prime minister. At dinner parties he was often heard boasting about his influence with Rajiv’s government and those to whom he boasted did not hesitate to spread the word around because the Quattrocchis were not popular in Delhi’s social circles. They were not a pleasant couple. Ottavio was loud and full of bluster, and Maria had a coarse, bossy manner. If they were invited everywhere it was only because of their obvious closeness to Rajiv and Sonia.
"I remember a dinner party in the house of an American diplomat at which an uncle of mine, who lived in the US, took me aside and asked me if I knew someone called Ottavio Quattrocchi. When I asked why, he said, ‘He just came up to me and said he was so close to the Gandhi family, that he could arrange for me to get government contracts.’ My uncle was with a big Am- erican construction company. Was I surprised by what he told me? Not at all, because I had heard such stories many times before. Was I surprised the Quattrocchis were using their proximity to the Gandhis to peddle influence? Not at all. What did surprise me was the manner in which Rajiv handled the Bofors scandal. Since there was no evidence then, or even at the end of endless inquiry commissions, that linked the bribes to him or his family why did he behave like a thief caught in the act?"
Because being caught was only a matter of a smart agent looking at the right spot?
Worth reading, unless one can or has already read the book that has more - Durbar, by the same author - but even then, it's a good read.
Whatever happened to Tavleen Singh' s plan to bring out a sequel to Durbar? Was she stopped by threats, or worse? A couple of years ago it was given on an interview one could access on YT that Durbar 2 was imminent.
http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/india/sonia-the-material-girl
"By Rajiv’s second year in power, stories about Sonia’s shopping sprees began to circulate in Delhi’s drawing rooms. The most dangerous gossips in Delhi are traditionally the sellers of shawls and carpets who wander from house to house with their wares. So it was from a Kashmiri shawl-seller that I first heard that the prime minister’s wife was buying shahtoosh shawls in large quantities. It was not an environmental crime then to wear shahtoosh but to buy a shahtoosh shawl was the equivalent of buying expensive fur. Only very rich Indians could afford to. Then, from diplomatic sources in distant Moscow, where the prime minister and his wife made their first foreign visit, came the story of Sonia buying an expensive sable coat. In Mrs Gandhi’s time, this kind of personal expenditure would either not have happened or would have happened so discreetly that nobody ever found out. Sonia’s sable coat travelled back on the prime minister’s flight, and people saw it and talked about it. According to the story I heard, Sonia’s taste in fur coats was so refined that she was not satisfied with Soviet tailoring and had the coat sent to Rome to be redesigned by Italian fashion house Fendi. These were the stories that are never possible to confirm, but gossip rarely needs confirmation to be believed.
"Other small sartorial signs of a gradual move away from ‘socialism’ soon became evident. Rajiv started to wear an expensive, gold Rolex watch and carry a Mont Blanc pen in the pocket of his humble khadi kurta. This elegant new touch was imitated instantly by other young members of the Congress party. The style was not just imitated but embellished. Suddenly it became fashionable to add a pair of Gucci loafers to clothes made of Gandhian khadi. India had been through so many decades of enforced socialist behaviour that in the eighties there were not many Indians who would have recognized international designer labels. Certainly, there were no journalists in Delhi who had any acquaintance with them but what they did start to notice soon was that Rajiv’s friends were all doing very well for themselves. Rumours of crony capitalism, an expression we only half understood then, started to spread. Contracts to export rice to the Soviet Union were said to have been handed to some of their friends and all sorts of other deals to others.
"To those of us who still saw Rajiv and Sonia’s friends in the drawing rooms of Delhi, it was instantly obvious that they suddenly had a lot of money. No longer did they travel economy when they went abroad and no longer did they stay with friends in London and New York. They stayed in expensive hotels and this was so new and wondrous an experience for them that they liked slipping names like Claridges and the Meurice into accounts of their travels. I remember on a trip to Washington being astounded to discover that one of Rajiv’s poorest friends spent a month occupying two suites in Watergate hotel. Friends of Rajiv who had lived on salaries that barely enabled them to afford a small Indian car now drove around in foreign cars and in their drawing rooms suddenly appeared expensive works of art and antiques. Nobody asked too many questions because Rajiv was still very popular but rumours of ‘deals’ started to filter into newspaper offices.
"Years later, when Sonia Gandhi became the most powerful political leader in India, she tried to distance herself from the Quattrocchis by pretending that she barely knew them. But in the year that the Bofors scandal shattered Rajiv’s image of being Mr Clean, everyone from Delhi’s drawing rooms to its corridors of power knew that the Quattrocchis were as close to the Gandhis as it was possible to be. They went on holidays together and Quattrocchi liked to flaunt his closeness to the prime minister. At dinner parties he was often heard boasting about his influence with Rajiv’s government and those to whom he boasted did not hesitate to spread the word around because the Quattrocchis were not popular in Delhi’s social circles. They were not a pleasant couple. Ottavio was loud and full of bluster, and Maria had a coarse, bossy manner. If they were invited everywhere it was only because of their obvious closeness to Rajiv and Sonia.
"I remember a dinner party in the house of an American diplomat at which an uncle of mine, who lived in the US, took me aside and asked me if I knew someone called Ottavio Quattrocchi. When I asked why, he said, ‘He just came up to me and said he was so close to the Gandhi family, that he could arrange for me to get government contracts.’ My uncle was with a big Am- erican construction company. Was I surprised by what he told me? Not at all, because I had heard such stories many times before. Was I surprised the Quattrocchis were using their proximity to the Gandhis to peddle influence? Not at all. What did surprise me was the manner in which Rajiv handled the Bofors scandal. Since there was no evidence then, or even at the end of endless inquiry commissions, that linked the bribes to him or his family why did he behave like a thief caught in the act?"
Because being caught was only a matter of a smart agent looking at the right spot?
Worth reading, unless one can or has already read the book that has more - Durbar, by the same author - but even then, it's a good read.
Whatever happened to Tavleen Singh' s plan to bring out a sequel to Durbar? Was she stopped by threats, or worse? A couple of years ago it was given on an interview one could access on YT that Durbar 2 was imminent.
http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/india/sonia-the-material-girl
