In 2015, I was in Wuxi, China, working with China Daily. It was midnight, and I was fast asleep when my phone rang.
I answered. It was Syed Akhtar.
“Bhaiya, want to speak to you,” he said.
Sudivya Sonu came on the phone.
“How are you?”
“I’m good,” I replied.
During the conversation, Sonu realised that it was already midnight in Wuxi and that I had to go to the office the next morning. He apologised. In India, it was around 9:30 pm.
Thousands of kilometres and two time zones separated us. Yet, in that moment, nothing about our conversation felt distant. It had the same warmth and familiarity as our conversations back home in Giridih.
Since 2010, I had spent most of my time away from Giridih. Our meetings became occasional, but our phone calls continued. Distance changed the frequency of our conversations, but not the ease with which we spoke to each other.
We also met in Jaipur in 2012, when Sonu had come there with several people from Giridih.
We travelled together three times: during the 2014 Lok Sabha election; in 2019, when we travelled to Bokaro for Jagarnath Mahato’s nomination; and when we came to Kolkata with the baraat for the wedding of Dr Deepak Bagaidia’s son, Abhishek.
But our story was never really about the journeys.
It was about what remained between those journeys.
A Connection That Began at the Giridih Court
Shibu Soren—Guruji—used to regularly appear at the Giridih court. That is where I first met Sonu.
In 2002, I entered journalism and began working with The Telegraph, posted in my hometown, Giridih. That was when my acquaintance with Sonu began. By 2004, we knew each other closely and had already seen many things together.
In 2009, Sonu contested the Assembly election for the first time and received fewer than 10,000 votes.
In 2014, he contested again. By then, I had left Giridih and was working in Jaipur. I knew he had lost by around 10,000 votes.
In 2019, I was back in Giridih and closely observed his campaign. Sonu would go for morning walks and meet people. I watched how he built his closeness with the Soren family and established his own identity within that political circle, and I reported on it.
He won the election.
One day, Sonu called me. I missed the call and returned it 10–15 minutes later.
He said, “The former Telegraph reporter, Deepika Singh, who is now a Congress MLA, is with me. I thought I would get you to speak to her.”
It was a small moment, but it said something about Sonu.
Political positions had changed. His own position had changed. But he had not forgotten people from an earlier chapter of his life.
That was something I noticed about him repeatedly.
A Book That Deepened Our Conversations
After becoming an MLA, Sonu once asked me to write a book on “Baba”—Shibu Soren.
“You should write a book on Baba. I will provide you with all the material,” he told me.
He gave me contacts. I reached out to people and prepared a synopsis.
Later, the party assigned the book to a journalist in Ranchi.
The book never happened.
But something else did.
The idea of that book opened up a different kind of conversation between us.
I would sit at his home for hours. Sonu would share detailed information about his political career, Guruji, his friends and many other things. Some of those conversations eventually found their way into my reports.
He probably knew that the book had not materialised. But he also knew that I had made the effort and had tried to take it forward sincerely.
Looking back, I sometimes think that perhaps the unwritten book gave us something that a completed book might not have—the long conversations that happened along the way.
A Friendship That Existed Beyond Politics
When Sonu came to Kolkata for his daughter’s treatment, we met then too. In 2022, he inaugurated my sister’s shop, Top Trends, in Barwadih.
These were not necessarily important political moments. But they were part of the relationship.
In 2019, after JMM’s poor performance in the corporation election, Sonu was worried. The Assembly election was only six months away. He was concerned about the feedback he was receiving from people.
Perhaps some of that feedback helped. He went on to become an MLA for the first time.
He would call to discuss local and political issues—1932 Khatiyan, the UCC Bill and several other matters. The 2024 election brought many more conversations between us. He followed some of my suggestions. I do not want to go into the details.
The important thing is this: I was his voter—I am a resident of Giridih constituency—his journalist and his friend.
Our houses were barely 500 metres apart.
We spent a lot of time together. We smoked cigarettes, sat for hours and talked about the country, the world and everything in between.
There were also conversations that had nothing to do with politics.
Sonu once told me that on the first night after his marriage, he had told his wife that he smoked, so that it would not become an issue later.
I remember such details because they belonged to the person I knew, rather than the politician people saw.
Our conversations were not interviews. They were not political briefings. They were simply conversations between two friends.
People in his office and within the party knew that we had a good relationship.
When Sonu became a minister, our meetings reduced somewhat. But the phone contact continued.
If he missed my call, he would call back later. He was not particularly good at replying to messages, but he could talk for a long time on the phone. Sometimes, Sonu would call me himself.
The trust remained.
At one point, he even promised to get eNewsroom empanelled.
One City, Two Different Paths—and a Shared Political World
I had good relationships with several other political leaders from Giridih as well. But my relationship with Sonu was different because I was also from his constituency.
There was a coincidence in our journeys.
As Sonu became increasingly active in politics and eventually became the district president, I entered journalism. I also lived near his house.
That meant I was able to observe his political and social life from unusually close quarters.
Sonu admired CPI(ML) leader Mahendra Singh. Before becoming an MLA, he would tell me that he liked Mahendra Singh’s politics and had learned from him. He also spoke positively about Vinod Singh in the early years.
Our political conversations were never limited to JMM or elections.
We discussed leaders, political ideas and the politics of Giridih. Sometimes, I even felt that I stood, in a way, between the two leaders.
There were many private conversations that never became public.
Perhaps they never needed to.
And Then Came That Final Speech
September 5—just 10 hours before his demise—was the last time I heard Sonu speak in public, with me present.
The event was at Islamia Urdu Middle School—the school where I had studied for three years. The occasion was the school’s 100-year celebration.
We were together there.
During the programme, Sonu said:
“Personality is mortal; institutions and ideas are immortal.”
I heard those words in person.
I did not know then that they would become the last words of his I would hear from a stage.
The next day was Sunday.
We had promised to meet.
That meeting never happened.
And with Sonu went many promises, many assurances and many conversations that now survive only as memories.
There are people whose political careers you can document through election results, speeches, positions and newspaper reports.
And then there are people you remember through smaller things—a late-night phone call, a cigarette, a long conversation, a missed call that was returned, a journey to another town, a promise to meet the next day.
For me, Sonu exists in all those memories.
I know enough about his life and political journey to write an entire book about him.
There is an irony in that.
The book Sonu once suggested that I write was never written.
But after his death, I could not stop myself from writing this story of our friendship.
Perhaps this is not the book he once asked me to write.
It is something else.
It is my attempt to hold on to a relationship that survived changing cities, changing political circumstances and long distances—and to a person I knew not only as a politician, but also as a friend.
For now, I have tried to bring this long story of Sonu and me into a single piece.
Some stories are written because they need to be told.
Some are written because the person who was part of them is no longer there to hear them.
This one is both.
