Cosmopolitan—January 2002

Padma Lakshmi: Mistress of Spice

By Aseem Chhabra
Photograph by Farrokh Chothia

Elite model and actress Padma Lakshmi on posing with boa constrictors, rustling up a mean couscous upma and dating Salman Rushdie.

Padma Lakshmi walks into the lobby of Manhattan’s legendary Algonquin Hotel dressed in a long black coat, a red hat and a knapsack. The 5ft 9” tall Indian beauty is barely recongnisable.

But then she settles down on a couch, takes off her Viktor & Rolk coat and she is pure Padma Lakshmi, in a schoolgirl-like miniskirt by Barabara Bui, with her winning smile, slender yet muscular arms, smooth almond skin, long and lustrous hair, and the 7”-long scar on her right arm—her good luck charm and a reminder of a near-fatal car accident she survived at age 14.

At 30, the New Delhi-born, Chennai and California-raised Padma has it all. As a model she has walked the runway for the likes of Ralph Lauren, Sonia Rykiel and Emmanuel Ungaro. As food writer, she has hosted television shows in the US and Europe. There is a parallel acting career developing—she recently acted opposite Justin Timberlake of Nsync in an Elton John video. And Salman Rushdie—the love of her life, dedicated his new novel, Fury, to her.

Bite of the Big Apple
“I am sorry I had to stand you up for a snake,” she says apologising as she starts the interview. The interview had to be rescheduled by a couple of days because Padma got a last minute modelling assignment from Lily of France.

She explains that the assignment required her to lie on the sets of the Garden of Eden in a white bra and panty, with half eaten apples flown from Washington State and a real 35-pound, 405 ft-long boa constrictor wrapped around her body. “They made me Eve because they thought that she would not be either too black or too white. Eve should be the mix of every race on Earth, since she was the first woman. And they gave me the job because of my medium colouring and for my eyes.”

“I wasn’t scared at all. The snake was so well-behaved.” It helped that the animal trainer sat close by during the shoot.

Runway Success
As a high school student in the suburbs of Los Angeles, Padma wanted so much to be a model. Her mother’s mind was clear—if she was beautiful at 17, she would still be attractive after she graduated from college at 21. She graduated with a BA in theatre arts from Clarke University, Massachusetts, US. During her last semester, she was hanging out at a bar in Madrid, when she was finally ‘discovered’ by an agent. Her big break came when celebrity photographer Helmut Newton asked her to pose partially nude for the Lavazza calendar. Newton’s condition was that Padma should show her scar.

Suddenly, she was being booked by everyone—from Italian Elle to the runways of Paris and Milan. “I always wanted to be a model because it is so glamorous,” she says. “Modelling has been very good for me. It has allowed me to do things that I would never have been able to do. I like the people I meet, I like to travel first class. I liked the world it allowed me to enter. You find yourself in the strangest of rooms. Because I was college-educated. Because I was better read than most models. Because I am from a background that allowed me to have a different cultural view of the world. Once I was in the room, it was up to me. Modelling was my ticket.”

The Europeans readily accepted her exotic looks. It helped that she spoke fluent Italian and Spanish, and had taken the time to learn the cultures of the two countries. She has hosted Domenica In—one of Italy’s highest-rated television shows and had judged the Miss Italy pageant.

“When all these Indian girls were winning Miss World and Miss Universe, there was an article about me in an Italian paper and it said that they had their own Indian girl at home. The Italians adopted me as an honorary daughter,” she says.

Cooking Up a Storm
As more doors opened, Padma one day found herself at a film premiere in New York. There she met Eve Weinstein, whose husband Harvey heads Miramax Films, the leading independent production and distribution company.

At the time Weinstein worked with Hyperion, Miramax’s book division. They talked about food and Padma’s passion for cooking. “I said I always wanted to do a cookbook because people always ask me what models eat,” she says. From this developed Padma’s 1999 cookbook—Easy Exotic, her collection of low fat recipes from around the world. The book includes recipes like Chick-Peas and Spanish Tapas (Spain), Couscous Upma (Morocco), Halibut with Cabbage (India) and Bali Baked Fish (Indonesia).

“This is how we eat,” she says. “Most people in modern cities don’t eat Indian or Chinese food all the time.”

The book tour led to a cooking show—Padma’s Passport for The Food Network in the US and a two-part documentary series for BBC called Planet Food.

“If you fly British Airways, you are forced to watch me,” she says with a laugh. “You are seat-belted and I am your in-flight entertainment.”

“My amma was always famous for being able to make up a meal in half an hour,” says Padma about her mother—a trained nurse, who now works part-time as a hospice coordinator for terminally ill patients in Los Angeles.

“You could always land at amma’s place at three in the morning with six friends and she would have something prepared for you. That inspired me to do the book. Spending 24 hours in the kitchen doesn’t appeal to me. Instead, I like to make something tasty and fast.”

Smokin’ Screen
Although modelling assignments continue to come her way, Padma’s focus has now shifted to her film career. She played Mariah Carey’s diva rival in Glitter and the love interest of Kabir Bedi’s on-screen son in Sandokan: The Darkness and Light.

But her real passion lies in two projects that she is developing for her own company—Lakshmi Films. In fact, she now invests money from her modelling assignments into her film company.

The first project relates to a novel she read when she was 14. Since the book is being optioned and the paperwork is not complete, Padma doesn’t reveal too much.

The second project is based on an original story idea about an Indian woman in the West who returns home to work in an orphanage. She plans to act in and direct the film. Recently, she pitched the lead role to Om Puri at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado, US. “I walked up to him and said I am a young filmmaker with a degree in theatre arts and would like to take him out for tea to talk to him about the film.”

What? Om Puri did not know who Padma Lakshmi was?

“Well, he had heard of me,” she says reluctantly with a smile. “But he didn’t know how I was and what I was about.”

Puri’s character, she says will be an amalgam of all those Indian men she has met over time. “I was raised by my grandfather and uncles (Padma’s parents were divorced when she was young) and I had great examples of loving fathers and wonderful husbands. And that doesn’t need to be someone who is very educated or very verbal. In Indian art house films, often the men are awful. And I didn’t want to do that. In my film nobody will be good or bad.”

Midnight’s Woman
The good man in Padma’s life is the 54-year-od British-Indian writer—Salman Rushdie. The two met a couple of years ago at another Miramax party, to launch celebrity editor Tina Brown’s Talk magazine. Rushdie has reportedly made New York his home because of their relationship. He left behind his third wife, Elizabeth West and two sons in the UK.

Not only is Fury dedicated to Padma, but the author even creates a character tailored after her—Neela Mahendra, a beautiful documentary filmmaker with a large scar who is in love with a Rushdie-like, Mumbai-born and Cambridge-educated intellectual Malik Solanka.

“I am flattered that this book is dedicated to me,” Padma says, although her favourite Rushdie novel is The Moor’s Last Sigh because it is based in South India.

When her aunt (mother’s younger sister, who is close in age to Padma) read The Moor’s Last Sigh, she thought Salman must understand and speak Malayalam.

“He doesn’t speak a word of Malayalam or Tamil,” Padma says with a laugh. When she is speaking in Tamil on the phone with her mother, Salman will come by and ask, “Was that Portuguese?”

There have been reports about other boyfriends in the past, but clearly, Rushdie has had the strongest impact on her.

“Being associated with Salman is the best thing by a mile that has happened to me. I have never been loved like this before by any person. I am extremely blessed. I must have been a saint in my last life, that I am reaping the benefits in this life. I can’t even imagine what the hell I have done to deserve this. Maybe, I like to think, I am good company.”

“It’s wonderful to have him in my life,” she says as her face glows. “I hope he feels the same. Well, he told me so five minutes ago, before this interview.”

Celebrity Status
Padma thanks her stars that her cookbook as well as her acting career started before she met Rushdie.

“I am very comfortable in my skin,” she says. “There is no question that I am in it for the right reasons. Because he has not affected my career one bit.”

When the news about Padma and Rushdie’s relationship first broke out, reporters turned up at her grandfather’s door in Chennai. And one reporter traveled from Toronto to New York to talk to the owner of Padma’s favourite Indian grocery store in the heart of Manhattan’s Little India neighbourhood. The reporter wanted to find out what groceries and spices Padma would buy from the store.

Then, while promoting her cookbook. Padma had to deal with an annoying journalist who kept asking what Rushdie was like as a person?

“I said, ‘Well, he is just like you and me, except that he is much smarter,’” she says. But the reporter kept pushing.

“He said ‘This is off the record, but what are the brilliant things he says?’” To that Padma replied, “Well, actually I carry a notepad in my back pocket with a pen, just so I can read his words to you.”

The reporter still would not take the hint and persisted.

“’Oh come on, you know what I mean’ the reporter said, ‘like what did he say to you last night?’ And I said: ‘Well, he asked me to move over, because I was hogging the bed.’”

Cosmo Cover Info
Piping-Hot Padma Lakshmi

You may have spotted our dusky covergirl as Mariah Carey’s rival in Glitter. This power-packed dynamo has been walking the catwalk, hosting TV shows in Italy and has even published a book of recipes. Here she spills her beauty secrets.

Name a can’t-do-without item.
My diamond ring. It is four carats. I bought the diamond after my second movie. I had Tiffany set it in LA.

What beauty product can you not live without?
Eyelash curler—it opens up my eyes.

Which jeans are your favourite?
A pair of sexy, tight jeans from Diesel.

What outfit are you living in now?
Because it is winter, I love sweaters. When I travel, they don’t wrinkle and they keep me warm. But they are stretchy, so I can show my figure.

How do you maintain that sexy figure?
I eat a low-carbohydrate diet and I exercise a lot. I dance and I’ve started boxing. It’s so wonderful. I know everybody else is into yoga. My coach was in the 1988 Olympic boxing team from Liberia. It makes me feel so strong and I come out of it dripping with sweat. I feel so skinny after it that I can eat a mountain of french fries. It doesn’t matter, because I’ve earned it.

Your biggest beauty blunder?
Overdressing for my cousin’s wedding. I wore this beautiful midnight blue chiffon sari, But I also wore every single piece of silver jewellery I had, which was unnecessary. So I looked like a Christmas tree. Less is more, sometimes.

Any favourite designers?
There are so many. Marni, and Italian designer. Also Costume Nationale, Helmut Lang and Marc Jacobs.

What’s your casual day look?
Usually a pair of high heels and jeans, and a little tight tank top, with a sweater on top. I think you should wear clothes that show the best of you. People should notice you and not your clothes.

And your evening glam garb?
I like a mini skirt. I think if you show your legs, you shouldn’t wear a low-cut blouse. And if you do wear one, then you should pair it with something like leather pants. Because then you are covered, and also warm. Otherwise it looks like you are trying too hard. Sign of desperation, like notice me.

What’s your haircare regime like?
I don’t use conditioner. I have fine hair, but it has a lot of body. And if I use conditioner, it looks greasy. All I do is shampoo it. And for that I am not particular. I take whatever is on sale, as long as it smells good. I don’t curl my hair. I only blow-dry it if it is cold. Because my hair gets worked on so much, I like to give it a rest.

What do you wear at night?
Nothing, nothing.