When Sonia Gandhi carried lunch to Tihar for Charles Sobhraj's accomplice

"My mother-in-law felt sorry for her," Sonia writes (Photo: PTI).

NEW DELHI: On Christmas Day 1978, Sonia Gandhi carried a home-cooked lunch into Tihar Jail for her imprisoned mother-in-law, Indira Gandhi, and, at the former Prime Minister's request, enough extra for a young Australian woman she describes as the accomplice of serial killer Charles Sobhraj.The episode appears in Belonging: A Journey of Love, Sonia Gandhi's memoir, released on November 10. It is set in the week Indira Gandhi spent in Tihar after the Janata Party, the combined opposition formation, came to power in the elections that followed the Emergency. Sonia writes that she visited the jail daily during that period.Christmas, she recalls, had always been a special day in the household, especially for the children, even when Sanjay and Rajiv were little boys.

"The celebration had no religious meaning for us, but it was a festive day when we exchanged gifts and decorated the house with colourful baubles and red poinsettias," she writes."But on this Christmas my mother-in-law was in jail. I felt that I had to do something special to keep our spirits up."A friend offered to send sliced ham with roast potatoes and a small Christmas pudding, while Sonia would prepare "a good soup and some vegetables".

The plan soon had to expand."At my mother-in-law's request, the food had to be enough also for the three women who took turns guarding her and a young woman prisoner in her compound," Sonia writes. She identifies the prisoner as "an Australian girl, the accomplice of the dreaded Charles Sobraj, convicted for multiple murders of young tourists in Thailand, Nepal, and India"."My mother-in-law felt sorry for her," Sonia writes.Then came a hitch. "When it turned out that she didn't eat ham, we quickly had to change the menu and prepare a roast chicken instead."There was resistance from within the jail as well. The day before, Indira Gandhi had sent a note saying that "under no circumstances" should her daughter-in-law deliver lunch. Sonia was to have her Christmas meal with Rajiv and the children.

"I couldn't do it," she writes.She went to Tihar with the food, a book as a small gift, and cards from the children.

"I rushed back rather late, but satisfied that I could celebrate with her briefly and also have lunch with Rajiv and the children," she recalls."As it happened, she was released the next day and came home."The passage offers a rare domestic glimpse into one of the most dramatic periods of modern Indian politics: a former prime minister in jail, her daughter-in-law shuttling between kitchen and cell, and a Christmas lunch stretched to include guards and a fellow prisoner linked to a notorious killer.