In the ultimate irony, the only way to explain the phenomenon of our most infamous 'foreigner' is to fall back on that 100 per cent desi culprit, karma, decides Bachi Karkaria, trying to make sense of the Sonia Gandhi saga

In a while, Straight-deal Sonia may well master the manipulations of a Lucretia Borgia. If she chooses instead to recreate a Byzantine court, she can learn as much from her adoptive political system as from the 13th century Catholic Empire which became a synonym for industrial-strength intrigue.

Which leaves us with the French civilisation. The Congress Party has declared a la Louis XV, 'Apres Sonia le deluge' (though it is clear that Rahul and Priyanka can equally salvage the dynasty). But, no one who saw how she reached out to the masses through the heat and dust and 60,000 km of her Jan Sampark Abhiyan can ever accuse her of dressing up to play the spurious shepherdess like a traipsing Marie Antoinette. On the contrary, it was the self-anointed custodian of Bharat, the BJP, which said, 'If they don't have power, let them eat Shining India.'

Looking back at the journey which culminated in mind-blowing May, you could call her Forster story, A Passage to India. But, a more apt title to borrow would be Naipaul's The Enigma of Arrival. That she has 'arrived' is now indisputable, yet how she made it remains as unfathomable. Not a single person, including her children and herself, could have been left unsurprised by the incredible nine days of mid-May 2004. Indian politics is a sport filled with dramatic turns and overturns. Dark horses turfing out favourites could fill seven Race Course roads. But Sonia's story is as implausible as her prancing like a designer filly on Derby Day.

Consider the precedents. No one in his most outrageous moments, least of all the 'humble farmer' himself, could have thought that H. D. Deve Gowda would get a throw at being Prime Minister, but, compared to Sonia's, his odds would have had the bookies dozing. There are many people in Mumbai and more in Delhi who think that anything south of the Vindhyas is another planet, but, geographically at least, HDDG didn't come from another continent. And no one would have accused him of being co-conspirator in a Papal Plot.

World mythology is laced with chance encounters that resulted in millionaires becoming monks and, more so, vice versa, but can you think of any happenstance that comes within challenging distance of a romance that started in a Greek restaurant in Cambridge and led to a homesick Italian language student heading the Prime Ministerial table of India. Plus, doing what no Prime Minister here had dared to do before, namely, renounce the office that came to her on a platter. She may have become Our Lady of Perpetual Suckers-up, but this time, not even the snidest carpers could have denied her singular right to the gaddi.

Think about it. Not only did the girl from obscure Orbassano first have to meet Rajiv Gandhi (an unimpressive student who would never have been at Cambridge if it hadn't been for his legendary grandfather), there had to be one reckless death and two assassinations in the same family to pitchfork Sonia Gandhi to her present position. History isn't short on tragic figures who would have given anything in the world not to have ridden to power on the back of traumatising events, but here, too, Sonia's burden is far heavier than that of the nearest competition.

To all these factors that made her destiny distinctly non-manifest, add the fact that she's a woman. Distance it further by the point that she didn't manoeuvre herself here with her drop-dead good looks. Indian politics has only one player more cloying than the syrupy sycophant and that is the sugar daddy. The bigger the dandy the more he loves eye-candy and they've helped their little confections get all kinds of chocolate-coated plums, from a place on the board of MTNL up to Chief Ministerial thrones. But, for Sonia, victory is at best bittersweet.

So, in the ultimate irony the only way to explain the phenomenon of our most infamous 'foreigner' is to fall back on that 100 per cent desi culprit, karma. Swaraj is not only your birthright, Sushma!
It's a good thing that the Bossini doesn't have too much time on her hands, because if she began thinking of the contradictions that have hounded her, she'd be schizoid. The woman who clawed the Congress back to self-respect and then gob-smacking glory was the same woman who had 'fought like a tigress' to prevent Rajiv giving up their private idyll and being pulled into the political free-fall caused by Sanjay's crashing out of the dynasty. The petrified young girl who forced her fiancé to turn the car back because she could not face her daunting mother-in-law-to-be was the same woman whose devastating lot it was to cradle the mortally wounded Indira in her lap. Another more shattering blow later, it was the same twice-traumatised woman who had to turn the party around with as formidable grit.

Sonia must be equally bemused by another turnaround. The media, as much as some of her partymen, has suddenly performed a neat sirshasana. They've all stood their earlier criticism on its head. Taking a deep breath and in one smooth 180-degree flip, they've switched her persona from That Woman Who Can Do Nothing Right to This Woman Who Can Do Nothing Wrong. Sonia is sensible - and cynical - enough to know that the latter is as absurd as the former. She might borrow the response of her son to the journalist who asked if he saw himself as the future Prime Minister: "Don't be ridiculous!"

As visibly Indian as the ikat she favours, she must marvel also at the sudden course correction on the most unkindest charge of all, that of being a 'foreigner'. To have gone through what she has and still be branded an outsider must cut like a salami slicer. She may not have been surprised, but she could not have been failed to be disappointed by the perversity of her situation. Taken into a tumultuous embrace by the electorate, she was forced to extricate herself from the top job thanks to the howls of defeated wolves in the divisive colours of 'national pride'. But the day was still hers. The 'inner voice' turned mere EVM victory into moral triumph, saving Sushma's hair, but locking her jaw in apoplectic envy at so brilliant a coup de grace.

The political circus never runs out of vaults and somersaults. The woman reviled as the 'foreigner' is now slavered over as the incarnation of every Hindu icon of renunciation, from Lord Rama to Mahatma Gandhi and a couple of in-between, temporal emperors thrown in for good measure. With our typical over-the-top-ness, Sonia Gandhi is not just hailed as the ultimate Yogi, she's also being hosanna-ed as the ultimate Commissar. The politically challenged 'mere housewife', as Jyoti Basu once summarily dismissed her, the woman with neither 'support' nor 'strategy' has suddenly been portrayed as Machiavelli-meets-Chanakya in the new Indo-Italian blockbuster.

It's going to be tough to spurn the sapping, suicidal coteries, but to them, keh do 'Na', keh do, "No!" Emphatically. It's the only way to stay the way you are, my So-ni-a.

Bachi Karkaria is national metro editor of The Times of India, with the mandate to change the way cities are covered by the Indian media. Her earlier job as group editorial director, Mid-Day Multimedia Ltd, involved content and strategic planning for print, Net and radio. Her professional specialisations are urbanisation and public health, notably AIDS, on which she is an internationally recognised authority.

[Bachi Karkaria is national metro editor of The Times of India, with the mandate to change the way cities are covered by the Indian media. Her earlier job as group editorial director, Mid-Day Multimedia Ltd, involved content and strategic planning for print, Net and radio. Her professional specialisations are urbanisation and public health, notably AIDS, on which she is an internationally recognised authority.]