Sonia Gandhi recalled Bill Clinton’s 2000 India visit in her new book, Belonging. She wrote that at a reception hosted by Prime Minister Vajpayee, Clinton was seen "surreptitiously sizing up the more striking women." She noted, "old habits die hard," while sharing memories of global figures she met over years.

In her book, Sonia Gandhi recalled that at a reception hosted by then Prime Minister Vajpayee, Bill Clinton was soon "sizing up the most striking women" at the event.

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. Friendly, informal, and exuding confidence, he appeared more keen to give us his own views and predictions about Kashmir- 'a nuclear flashpoint', in his words, 'one of the most dangerous places on earth'-than to pay attention to our point of view."

"The Monica Lewinsky scandal had subsided a little by then, but old habits die hard; at the reception held by Prime Minister Vaipayee in his honour, I noticed him every now and then surreptitiously sizing up the more striking women present," Gandhi recalls.

In her book, Gandhi also shares interesting anecdotes from then French president Nicolas Sarkozy's 2008 visit when he made a trip to India without his then partner Carla Bruni.

"It was said that he (Sarkozy) had been advised not to bring her (Bruni) because they were unmarried which would have been awkward at official functions. Seated at the banquet table, I was amused when the wife of our Vice President Mohammad Ansari, seated next to him, proceeded to quiz him good-naturedly about his marital plans. Was he going to get married? And if so, had the date been decided? Was he missing her? "President Sarkozy seemed unperturbed by the cross-examination, even eager to share details of his love life, answering all her questions while continuously messaging his Carla on his phone," says Gandhi.

She says that she met the couple on a subsequent visit at a private dinner given by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and his wife some years later.

"By this time President Sarkozy and Carla Bruni had tied the knot and made their appearance together. He was obviously besotted with his tall and beautiful wife of Italian and French descent, who had been a popular singer and songwriter in Europe, as well as a top model. All eyes were on her as she glided into the room in an elegant long gown, graceful and slim, demure and blue-eyed," Gandhi says in the book.

"She spoke cordially but infrequently-while her husband held forth, expounding his views to our prime minister on what India should do in what I felt was a rather arrogant manner, unmindful of the fact that he was talking to someone more senior, more experienced and more knowledgeable," she says.