Rahul Gandhi, readers might be surprised to discover, holds a black belt in the Japanese martial arts form Aikido, received his first paycheck from a corporate job at age 25 and has a dislike for peas and jackfruit.

“The culture is completely different (across districts and states). Food, languages, music – everything is different. And it changes, not just at the state boundaries but also within. Telangana was a bit spicy for me. The chillies were over the top…there I struggled,” he began during a recent conversation with Curly Tales CEO Kamiya Jani.

The Congress leader revealed that his boarding school life had been marked with “some teachers who were overly nice” and others who opted to be “really nasty” to him.   

“I was in boarding school. A day before my grandmother’s death we were taken away from there. When dadi died they just didn’t allow us to go to school,” he recalled.

The Wayanad MP also touched upon the possibility of marriage, insisting that he would settle down with a partner when he met the right woman. As he put it, he was simply looking for “a loving person who is intelligent”.

Videos of Gandhi diving into the sea to swim with fishermen in Kollam had gone viral ahead of elections in 2021.

“When I was in Florida, I used to teach diving as a hobby. I do dive and also do something called free diving – which is diving, breath holding, without scuba gear. If I’m trained up I can hold my breath for a long time,” he explained.

Gandhi had been the Congress’ presidential candidate in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, and there is buzz of a similar nomination in 2024. 

“”I would transform the education system. I would help people doing production…who might have small businesses…who might be struggling. And I would help them scale those businesses and make them big. I think what India needs is lots of small businesses transforming into larger ones because the real problem we are facing is unemployment. With the type of concentration of wealth that we have, you’re not going to solve that problem. The third thing I would do is…I would protect the people who are having a rough time: farmers, labourers, youngsters who are unemployed. I’d make sure that they feel they have protection in this country,” Gandhi explained, fielding a question about his focus points if he became the Prime Minister of India.