Some stories are best told through the people who surround them. Decades ago, in Italy, Rajiv Gandhi raised a camera to a young Sonia and made a portrait that would outlast the moment. Today, that image graces the cover of her memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, released on 10 November. On the same day, another photograph appears, taken by another member of the family: her grandson, Raihan, has turned his lens towards his grandmother for a very special magazine cover, styled by his mother, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. The two images, separated by decades and made by two generations of the same family, form a quiet and moving pair.
A Portrait From Italy
The memoir’s cover is a black-and-white photograph of a young Sonia, her hair down and her lipstick on, with the ease of someone who trusts the person behind the camera. It was reportedly taken by Rajiv Gandhi, and it carries the tenderness of a picture made by someone who knew her well. Placed on the cover of a book about love and belonging, it frames the whole story: a young woman in Italy, before the years that would take her to India and into history. Monochrome gives the portrait a timeless quality. Without colour to date it, the viewer reads the image through its light, its composition and its feeling. It looks less like a formal portrait than a moment of affection captured, and that is precisely what makes it powerful as an opening to a memoir.
A Grandson Behind the Camera
Raihan’s cover for the magazine continues the story in a different register. Where Rajiv’s photograph looks back to a beginning, his looks at the woman who has lived the decades since. That a grandson should photograph his grandmother, in the same year that her husband’s portrait of her becomes the face of her book, gives the shoot a sense of inheritance. A camera has passed from one generation to the next, and so has a way of seeing her: with warmth, closeness and respect.
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Priyanka’s Hand in the Styling
Styling the cover is Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Sonia Gandhi’s daughter. It adds a third layer to the project. The look is shaped not by a distant stylist but by someone who has known her mother’s tastes all her life: her preference for natural fabrics, soft colours and clean lines. [Add outfit details here once confirmed: saree or ensemble, weave, colour, jewellery, hair and make-up.] When styling is done with that level of familiarity, it becomes less about creating an image and more about reflecting a person.
Style as Family Language
Sonia Gandhi has long been associated with an understated approach to dressing. Cotton sarees, quiet colours and little ornament have been constants. The two covers show how that approach spans time. In the youthful portrait, it appears as simplicity and ease. In the new cover, it appears as poise and confidence. Together, they suggest a visual language that has stayed constant even as her life changed. A memoir about belonging finds a fitting visual echo in these images. Belonging, after all, is made of relationships: a husband who photographed his wife, a daughter who styles her mother, a grandson who frames his grandmother. The covers do not simply illustrate a life. They show who surrounds it.
A Story Told by Those Closest
In an age of polished campaigns and professional teams, there is something refreshing about a cover shaped entirely within a family. The result feels personal, unhurried and sincere. It reminds readers that behind public life lies a private one, built on affection and memory. As readers open Belonging, they begin with a young woman in Italy photographed by the man she would marry. As they turn to the new cover, they meet the same woman, decades on, seen through the eyes of her grandson. Between those two pictures lies the story of a life, and the people who have always been right behind the lens.
