The publication of Sonia Gandhi’s memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, has brought back a small but memorable episode associated with Gopalganj to Raisina: My Political Journey, the memoir by Lalu Prasad Yadav which I co-authored with him.Nearly a decade ago, when we were working on his political memoir, Lalu Prasad Yadav was full of praise for Sonia Gandhi, recalling how she had taken the reins of the Congress in 1997-1998, when the grand old party was in the depths of a crisis.It was the time when senior Congress leaders Sharad Pawar, P.A. Sangma and Tariq Anwar had revolted against her on the issue of her “foreign origin”. Taking advantage of the internal developments in the Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party leaders also upped the ante against her.Lalu shared with me that several political leaders, including Arjun Singh, Mamata Banerjee, P. Chidambaram and G. K. Moopanar, were solidly behind Sonia Gandhi, and wished for her to take over the leadership of the party. She also keen to, according to Lalu, “restore order in the party and infuse fresh energy into it, coming out of her isolation”.Sonia Gandhi was not an MP. And yet, Lalu said, many BJP leaders had began using objectionable terms against her. Pramod Mahajan was one. It is also well known how Sushma Swaraj announced that she would tonsure herself if Sonia, a woman of foreign origin, became the prime minister.Lalu had shared: “I had not met Sonia ji then. The Rabri Devi government at that time had a comfortable majority in Bihar and was not dependent on the Congress either. I have always been guided in my life by impulse rather than calculation of profit and gain. I lost my cool at their uncouth conduct and declared, “Sonia Gandhi Bharat ki bahu hain. Woh Bharat ke ek balidani pradhan mantri ki vidhawa hain…Main unpar koi lanchhan bardasht nahin karoonga (Sonia Gandhi is our nation’s daughter-in-law. She is the widow of a former Prime Minister who sacrificed his life. I will not tolerate abusive attacks on her)’.”Sonia Gandhi’s forewordIt was a hot summer evening in July 2018. Having recorded Lalu’s words, spoken in his inimitable style, I proposed that he should request Sonia Gandhi to write a foreword for what eventually became Gopalganj to Raisina: My Political Journey, published in 2019.The Rashtriya Janata Dal boss, who was out on parole from Birsa Munda Central Jail, Ranchi, at the time, immediately called Sonia from his landline phone at 10, Circular Road, Patna, and requested her to write the foreword. Sonia asked for the manuscript and graciously agreed to write the foreword after reading it. We subsequently sent the manuscript to her.In September 2018, Sonia sent us an evocative foreword, duly signed by her: “This book is about the life of one of India’s most colourful, compelling and even controversial political personalities, all of which makes it a unique and fascinating story…Over the decades he has built up a legion of admirers as well as an army of critics. But what unites those who stand with him and those who oppose him is the acceptance of the fact that he simply cannot be ignored; that he occupies a distinctive place in our public life…This narrative is an engaging and informative chronicle of the life and times of a man who has not only lived through recent history, but has decisively shaped it in so many ways”.The foreword was a significant part of the book’s journey to publication. For me, as a journalist who had spent nearly three decades reporting on Bihar’s politics and society, working on a political memoir with one of the state’s most consequential political figures was itself a different kind of writing experience. It required moving beyond the daily demands of journalism to reconstruct a political life, its memories, relationships, conflicts and turning points.Sonia Gandhi’s decision to write the foreword remains a pleasant memory from that period. It also reminds me how writing sometimes brings people together across different political and personal worlds.Also read: Sonia Gandhi Says She Fears For Rahul, Priyanka Because of ‘Ruthless & Unprincipled’ Rivals With Right-Wing AgendaBelongingHer memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, has now been published. I must confess that I am yet to read it. I certainly intend to do so. I would not like to offer an opinion on a book I have not yet read, particularly one in which the author sets out to narrate her own life and experiences. When I read it, I will try to understand her life journey – from her birth and upbringing in Italy, her education in Cambridge, and her romance with Rajiv Gandhi, to the many other small tales related to food, child-rearing and relationships that we may not be aware of.For the moment, its publication has simply taken me back to that earlier encounter with her writing, through the foreword she contributed to our book.Books have their own journeys. Sometimes, a sentence written for someone else’s story becomes a lasting memory in the life of another writer.In fact, my passion for working on the folklore of Bihar in particular and India in general had inspired me to accept Lalu Prasad Yadav’s offer to co-author his memoir. This was because Lalu himself is very passionate about folktales, local adages, earthy language and the lives of people, particularly those from marginalised sections, at the grassroots level. He is a repository of stories and ballads associated with gods, ghosts, frogs, jackals, food, cattle and animals, which he loved to share with me and which, somehow, contributed to my own writing journey too.Nalin Verma is a journalist, author and biographer of Lalu Prasad Yadav.