Sonia was born as Antonia Edvige Albina Maino on 9 December 1946 to Stefano and Paola Maino in Contrada Màini (“Maini quarter/district”), at Lusiana, a little village 30 km from Vicenza in Veneto Italy, where families with the family name “Màino” have been living for many generations.
Her family was of rather modest means and she was raised in a traditional Roman Catholic family. Her father, a building mason, died in 1983. Her mother and two sisters still live around Orbassano, a town near Turin.
Destiny brought Rajiv Gandhi, the son of most powerful politician in India and a shy Italian from a non-descript village.
In 1964, Sonia went to study English at the Bell Educational Trust’s language school in the city of Cambridge. She met Rajiv Gandhi, who was enrolled in Trinity College at the University of Cambridge in 1965 at a Greek restaurant (the Varsity Restaurant) while working there as a waitress to make ends meet. More
