Life is a continuous process of adjustment.

By now even the word socialism has so many meanings and interpretations. The Russians call themselves socialists, the Swedes call themselves. And let's not forget that in Germany there was also a national socialism.

I had recently had the impression they were changing - not so much by becoming less pro-Pakistan as by becoming less anti-India. I was wrong. My visit to [Richard] Nixon did anything but avert the war.

One day in 1965 Rajiv wrote me from London, where he was studying, and informed me, 'You're always asking me about girls, whether I have a special girl, and so forth. Well, I've met a special girl.' And when Rajiv returned to India, I asked him, 'Do you still think about her in the same way?' And he said yes. But she couldn't get married until she was twenty-one, and until she was sure she'd like to live in India. Sonia is almost completely an Indian by now, even though she doesn't always wear saris.

Poverty assumes so many aspects here in India. There aren't only the poor that you see in the cities, there are the poor among the tribes, the poor who live in the forest, the poor who live on the mountains. Should we ignore them as long as the poor in the cities are better off? And better off with reference to what? To what people wanted ten years ago? Then it seemed like so much. Today it's no longer so much.

If you only knew, for instance, how much I enjoy being a grandmother! Do you know I'm twice a grandmother? Rajiv and Sonia have had a boy and a girl.

Our pride has grown in the last twenty-five years, though others don't understand it and underestimate it.