Former model Mun Mun Sen embarking on her maiden celluloid venture as a heroine

Perched delicately over a rather battered late 19th century painting, her long honey-coloured hair hiding her face completely, the mellow-voiced and attractiveSonia Gandhi, 34, has recently taken up an old passion - preservation of paintings. While husbandRajiv Gandhi is busy trying to restore politics to health she is spending her precious hours at the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, as an apprentice, picking up the painstaking technique of restoration. When approached for an interview, the lady pouted, swished her hair back in one delicate stroke and exclaimed: "No please. Do not take any photographs. Even if you wait here for an hour I will not give you an interview. If I give you an interview then all the other journalists will come rushing to me." Known to be a totally "private person," and apparently nervous at having been cornered by a determined journalist, she spilled an extra dose of solvent on the painting and exclaimed in her heavily Italian-accented voice: "Look what you have made me do!" The prime minister's elder daughter-in-law determinedly resumed her work, making it clear that she still wishes to remain a "private person".