Vignettes of a reluctant politician

Now moves are afoot to shoot a new feature film on India's ruling Congress party President Sonia Gandhi depicting her as a leader who reluctantly took a plunge into politics only to fulfill the dream of her assassinated husband Rajiv Gandhi she loved so much.

Los Angeles-based Jagmohan Mundra is set to direct the movie Sonia for which he is now in India scouting for locales and some members of the cast of the project which is estimated to cost about US$ 6 million.

The film is being shot in Italy, India and Britain. Expected to be completed by April next year, it will be in English. It is likely to feature Italian actress Monica Bellucci or Indian Preity Zinta in the title role. Mundra plans to rope in an Indian actor for the role of Rajiv Gandhi.

Another key role in the proposed film that of Sonia's mother-in-law and former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi-- is likely to be essayed by Bollywood actress Perizaad Zorabian who shot into fame with her debut in Subhash Ghai's Joggers' Park two years ago opposite veteran actor Victor Banerjee.

It may be recalled that legendary actress Suchitra Sen had played the role many consider that of Indira Gandhi in the famous Hindi feature film Aandhi, also featuring Sanjeev Kumar, in the '70s.

The film is based on the book Sonia: A Biography by Indian journalist Rasheed Kidwai. "I am sure they will stick to the spirit of the book. The real challenge will be to make the characters as real as possible," said the scribe.

Mundra says the film will open with Sonia Gandhi's dramatic renunciation of the post of India's Prime Minister after the Congress emerged the single largest party in parliamentary polls in May last year, paving the way for Oxford-educated Manmohan Singh to take over.

The story will then recount how Sonia, the girl from a small village in Italy, met Rajiv in Britain, fell in love with him and married him, her arrival in India, adjusting to the life in this country and as a member of Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and her close ties with Indira Gandhi.

The film will also show how destiny played a role in Sonia joining politics she had once disliked seven years after the killing of her husband by a suicide bomber in May 1991.

According to Mundra, the movie will also feature how Sonia had not quite approved of Rajiv's entering politics after the death of his brother Sanjay in 1980 and his becoming the Indian Prime Minister in 1984 following the death of Indira Gandhi.

For seven years after the death of Rajiv, Sonia had been behind the iron curtains before she was goaded to take charge of the 120-year-old Congress in 1997 to revive its flagging electoral fortunes. The film will also trace Sonia's coming of age as a politician--from being a housewife to the chief of the country's oldest party, Mundra said.