{"id":11240,"date":"2011-11-17T04:11:58","date_gmt":"2011-11-17T04:11:58","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-11-17T04:11:08","modified_gmt":"2011-11-17T04:11:08","slug":"In-Italian-Town-Celery-More-Celebrated-Than-Sonia-Ghandi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=11240","title":{"rendered":"In Italian Town, Celery More Celebrated Than Sonia Ghandi"},"content":{"rendered":"

On first impressions, there is not much going for Orbassano. Once a rural village, it\u2019s now crowded with modern housing blocks and surrounded by a flat industrial landscape. It seamlessly spills into Turin, the largest city of Italy\u2019s wealthy Piedmont region, to which many commute for school or work. More of a provincial outskirt than anything else, Orbassano would never make it on any tourist itinerary. It probably doesn\u2019t look anything like it did when Sonia Gandhi grew up here. A lot of it was likely built after she left\u2013in the late 1960s, perhaps\u2013 and it retains few traces of its past. The one timeless constant are the snowcapped Alpine mountains in the distance, which you can still see on clear days. It is this backdrop that gives the region its name: Piedmont, which, derives from the Latin for at the foot of the mountains.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sonia Gandhi makes it in Orbassano\u2019s Hall of Fame along with a string of rather obscure characters. For Indians, the only reason Orbassano is on the map is that it is here that the Congress party president was raised. But that\u2019s not the case for locals. In Orbassano, a town of roughly 23,000 people, Sonia Gandhi is far from a household name. Indeed, while her foreign origins have been a major political handicap for her in India, many of those living where she originated haven\u2019t even heard of her. The older generation remembers a little bit about her from the days when she left Orbassano, her life taking an extraordinary turn. She was in Cambridge, enrolled in language school, when she met future Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, and the two were soon married. She was only 21 at the time and that was big news in this small provincial town. Since then, however, interest in Ms. Gandhi has waned. \u201cShe married an Indian politician, didn\u2019t she?\u201d said Emilio Pisu, 73, on a recent afternoon. That\u2019s all he could remember about her. Mr. Pisu\u2019s friends, all men in their 70s, have similarly fragmented memories of Ms. Gandhi and her life story. They are aware that she is \u2013 or was \u2013involved in Indian politics, but no one seemed to know that today Ms. Gandhi is by far the most powerful Italian-born woman in the world. Some remember seeing her around town as a teenager, or meeting her father, a building contractor, whom 70-year old Giovanni Pereson described as \u201ca very good man.\u201d Ms. Gandhi\u2019s name seems to mean even less to the local youth. \u201cI heard her name before but I can\u2019t quite place it,\u201d said Elena Nicita, a 17-year old student who was born and raised in Orbassano. <\/p>\n

Ms. Gandhi\u2019s virtual anonymity in her hometown is partly of her own making. Her senior role in Indian politics has meant that she has long played down her Italian roots. She gave up her Italian citizenship years ago and isn\u2019t seen in public speaking in Italian, her mother tongue. Ms. Gandhi, who is fiercely secretive about her private life, has kept her ties with the country of her birth very much under the radar. As a result, the woman regarded as India\u2019s most powerful politician is barely known in Italy. She has built up a strong reputation abroad, and this has trickled down to Italy, but only up to a point. In educated circles, most people are aware that Mrs. Gandhi plays an influential role in Indian politics, but few, even in her hometown, really see her as one of their own.<\/strong> Orbassano\u2019s Hall of Fame makes a valiant effort at removing Mrs. Gandhi from obscurity, but it can only go so far. A large, painted tile work hangs on a side street off the town\u2019s central square, depicting Ms. Gandhi wearing a sari on a pink backdrop (she\u2019s also the only woman featured in it.) Among the 14 famous Orbassano notables featured are also a cardinal, several Catholic priests and an obscure mathematician. Here, she is identified by her maiden name, Sonia Maino, and is described as Rajiv Gandhi\u2019s widow and president of the ruling Congress party.<\/p>\n

There are other traces of Ms. Gandhi\u2019s local roots scattered around town: a road, as well as a bus stop, named after her late husband. Via Rajiv Gandhi cannot be called charming \u2013 it\u2019s a dead end road, more of a parking lot, really, but at least it recalls the late Mr. Gandhi. There\u2019s nothing similar named after his Italian wife\u2014not even an Indian restaurant. For that matter, there doesn\u2019t appear to be a single Indian restaurant in this town. For many locals, Orbassano\u2019s real claim to fame is a particular variety of celery- a red celery. The harvest of the celery, a major event in Orbassano\u2019s calendar, is celebrated with an annual fair as well as a marathon. We are unlikely to ever see any event here celebrating Ms. Gandhi\u2019s ties to the Italian town. If anything, her impression on the population is likely to diminish further as the years go by. Even in the town of her origin, it is clear that Ms. Gandhi\u2019s Indian identity has long ago papered over her Italian one.<\/strong><\/p>\n

SOURCE<\/a>
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On first impressions, there is not much going for Orbassano. Once a rural village, it\u2019s now crowded with modern housing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1213,"featured_media":72448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-highlighted-post":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-small":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x90.jpg","colormag-featured-image":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-default-news":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","colormag-featured-image-large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"Joshua","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/62ee23f8f40307578d1f284ecd823d77f32da8ea35541e7dbdafeb5da1a4e877?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"1","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"On first impressions, there is not much going for Orbassano. Once a rural village, it\u2019s now crowded with modern housing","magazineBlocksPostCategories":[],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":151,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":5,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"medium":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg",113,150,true]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"Joshua","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=1213"},"magazine_blocks_comment":1,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/62ee23f8f40307578d1f284ecd823d77f32da8ea35541e7dbdafeb5da1a4e877?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}