Song For Sonia
Fifteen years ago I sat watching the six o’clock news with my son Daniel. Rajiv Gandhi had been assassinated and the main feature covered his funeral. I watched, deeply moved, as aeroplanes flew above the procession to open their doors and gently shower rose petals over the mourner’s heads. Then the camera caught the faces of his wife Sonia and her two children and their expressions of shock and pain haunted me as my eyes were opened to the tragedy that must lies behind all acts of political violence. I made sense of my feelings by writing a song for his wife and I later recorded it for my first album ‘Spirit Talk’. When performing Song For Sonia I’d tell the story and reflect on how she would probably never hear it.
As I drove to work recently I thought about this again for the first time in years. When I got home my friend Gerry called to say that she had found an article about Sonia Gandhi in the Telegraph Magazine and that in it there was an address. I bowed in deference to the synchronicity and sent the album in the post the next day following it in my heart all the way to India.
Tree weeks later my, by now very big, son was recording a saxophone track on my latest song when a knock came at the door. It was a parcel wrapped in cloth and stitched by hand bearing the senders address ‘Sonia Gandhi, New Delhi, India’. The package contained a signed letter saying how much she valued the song and the fact that I had sent it. She enclosed two beautiful books that she had written about Ragiv and on opening the first one I found this quote.
“True non-violence requires understanding of the historical and moral truth that hate does not drive out hate, that anger cannot conquer anger, that fear does not overwhelm fear. In the heart of a truly non-violent person, there is a profound belief that hate can only be driven out by love, that anger can only be conquered by compassion, and that fear can only be overcome by courage.” Rajiv Gandhi.

Song for Sonia. Gillie Nicholls-May 1991.

All my emotion is with you today.
It may not be devotion, but traders kiss that way.
Petals fall from heavens walls for men who lay ‘In State’.
Frozen emotion.
Wars rage for heaven, side’s barter stakes.
While they trade off their tomorrows, vacant in the wake.
Petals dance, for those who chance just parted from this day
And fired my emotion.
Veils fall in ribbons, torn by change.
They go twisting through the river, bathing in its grace.
Petals dance, the widows trance, she stands, she fades away.
Feel my emotion.
Don’t ask questions and don’t carve waves.
We are born forever. He was born for this day.
To be written down, her lovers crown, just stole his sole away.
And fired my emotion.
All my emotion is with you today.
Though it may not be devotion. Traders kiss that way.
As roses fall, their spirits call “ Don’t hold the ransom’s reigns”.
Just feel your emotion today.

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