Former PM Atal Behari Vajpayee with then US President Bill Clinton. (Express Archive Photo)

By the time Bill Clinton visited India in 2000, the Monica Lewinsky scandal had cooled down; however, Sonia Gandhi notes in her memoir that “old habits die hard,” recounting how the former US president would now and then be seen “surreptitiously sizing up the more striking women” during a reception.

This memory is one of numerous encounters with global figures, such as Nicolas Sarkozy and Princess Diana, detailed in Gandhi’s newly published book, Belonging: A Journey Of Love .

In the book, she offers an extended account of a reception hosted for Clinton by then-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

She writes: “President Bill Clinton was staying at the Sheraton hotel with his daughter, Chelsea, and his delegation in 2000 when I called on him with our foreign minister.…