1965: The Rajiv-Sonia love story

The Varsity Restaurant was "my home", Yusuf Hamied recalls, when he was first an undergraduate and then a PhD student at Christ's College, Cambridge, from 1954 to 1960.

Yusuf, now 81 and head of Cipla, the pharma giant, last week popped into Varsity for old time's sake.

Hearing him talk about his college days, the staff brought out a photograph of Rajiv Gandhi and Sonia Maino, who were said to have met at the restaurant in 1965. A black-and-white photograph, it somehow suggested the couple were very much in love.

Rajiv was (sort of) studying engineering at Trinity; Sonia had come from Italy and was enrolled at a language school.

In this context, The Times of London once reported: "Mrs Gandhi was an 18-year-old student at a small language college in Cambridge in 1965, making ends meet by working as a waitress in the Varsity restaurant, when she met a handsome young engineering student."

According to Yusuf, a repository of reliable intelligence, someone called Christian von Stieglitz, "who was at Christ's", pointed Sonia out to Rajiv on that fateful occasion and murmured encouragingly: "Isn't she a pretty girl?"

Had Indira Gandhi not declared her Emergency, had Sanjay not died in a flying accident, had history and fate not intervened, Rajiv and Sonia might still be leading a quiet domestic life today.

Over the years, Yusuf has been a generous benefactor to Christ's. Jane Stapleton, the first woman Master of Christ's in over 500 years, showed him Hamied Hall, Yusuf's latest acquisition on behalf of his college for postgraduate students. This adds to Hamied House and Hamied Lodge - not forgetting the Yusuf Hamied Centre, incorporating a lecture theatre, inside the college where he had once had a room in Second Court 63 years ago.

The Master is keen to research the college's Indian connections. Of course, it boasts a bust of Jagadish Chandra Bose who arrived at Christ's in 1882 to read Natural Sciences. There is also a small dining room, named after Lord Mountbatten, who had been at Christ's in 1919 and was made an honorary Fellow in 1946 - a year before going to India as viceroy to preside over the transfer of power.

After attending a college dinner, Yusuf spent the night in a room in First Court. "I was rather cold," he complained to me later.

Yes, but in the way of ancient English institutions, I am sure it will be very character forming.

Love in the air

• Yusuf Hamied tells me another anecdote — about Swaran Singh, an excellent cricketer but a very shy contemporary at Christ’s, whom he introduced to a German girl at a dance. Actually, he persuaded the German girl to dance with Swaran Singh. The upshot was that six months later, the couple decided to get married — Cambridge somehow inspires such youthful romance.

"As his best friend, I was one witness but we needed a second one," remembered Yusuf.

A passing Sikh student, a good boy who wasn't chasing girls but really was studying Economics at St. John's College, agreed. That apparently was Manmohan Singh's first good deed.

"Ah, yes, I remember," India's former Prime Minister murmured when Yusuf bumped into him some years ago.

American beauty

• She may call herself "Nikki Haley" but the US ambassador to the United Nations is (metaphorically anyway) as Punjabi as you or me.

Last week, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a fascinating profile on her. "A rising star, someone to watch," one American said of the former South Carolina governor who was born Nimrata Randhawa to Ajit Singh Randhawa and Raj Kaur Randhawa, immigrants from Punjab. Another predicted that the 45-year-old, who converted to Christianity, might run for the White House in 2024.

Captain's knock

• Captain Amarinder Singh, the Punjab chief minister, has been having a lovely time in London. At the Mayfair Hotel, he chatted to Suhel Seth while releasing his authorised biography, The People's Maharaja, by Khushwant Singh (a "real-ly well-written book", according to Lord Meghnad Desai's wife, Kishwar, herself an author).

At India House, he inaugurated the "Connect With Your Roots" programme "directed primarily at young boys and girls of Punjabi origin" to visit Punjab (shouldn't Mamata be doing something similar?)

He launched his own book, Saragarhi And The Defence Of The Samana Forts.

And after lunch with Lakshmi Mittal, the Capt. tweeted: "Look forward to more business with his company in Punjab."

It is certainly about time Mittal put some money into India though Calcutta, once his home, should perhaps be his first port of call.

Tittle tattle

• Footballers traditionally have their newspaper articles ghosted but former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan? Private Eye this week claimed "Vaughan's (UK Daily) Telegraph column is in fact ghost-written by sports hack Nick Hoult. Every, er, word of it!"