I guess Salman Rushdie and his supermodel turned cook-book author-wife Padma Lakshmi are of the school that there is no such thing as bad publicity. After their most recent appearance in the New York press, you know when Rushdie threatened to beat NY Times writer Guy Trebay with a bat, Rush and Molloy are reporting in the New York Post that Rushdie will be writing his wife a screenplay.
Rushdie told Webster Hall’s Baird Jones: “I am working on a script for Padma to direct. It starts as a comedy, then becomes tragedy and finally ends in horrendous violence.”
This wouldn’t be that unusual, but the thing is, Padma can’t really act (Have you seen the Mariah Carey bomb Glitter or Kaizad Gustad’s Boom?). What makes him, or anyone, think she can direct?
dude Sajit… Salman is gonna kick your ass!
“Padma can’t really act”
I’m guessing Rushdie did not marry her for her acting skills, her opinions on Social Security, the war, or a secret juggling ability. I’m guessing the main reason he married her, well, it cannot be discussed on a family forum.
great, now you’ve called up the “Rushdie Wrath” on the mutineers…
KXB- given your guess that Padma’s no MENSA chairperson and that her IQ isn’t exactly what gets Rushdie all garam-garam and dancing in fountains, why do we suppose she married him?
I find SM’s fascination with Padma, Vikram Chatwal, and other ‘Page 3’ types to be fascinating in its own right. Who cares about wealthy, beautiful people just because they’re… brown?
We only care about Padma because she’s, well, eye candy at best. Chatwal seems like an obnoxious ass who like Padma, should not be caught ‘acting’ or allowed anywhere near a movie set. Anyone seen the ‘One Dollar Curry’ preview? It looks atrocious.
For the same reason other attractive women marry wrinkly, old (but wealthy) men – status, security, putting out the idea that they are not just a pretty face. It’s not without precedent – Marilyn Monroe married Arthur Miller.
If Rushdie was a gas station owner, do you think Padma would be interested in him?
Only if he were a wealthy, literary minded gas station owner.
Try the converse: If Padma were a plain jane, would Salman be interested in her?
….Well would we be? 🙂
http://tilotamma.blogspot.com/2005/02/does-mrchinnasamys-clan-know.html
I suggested that this Madras sari store should use Padma’s unasked for endorsement to rake in the money but all my Madras readers seem to have other views on the topic. She can’t act /sell saris it seems 🙂
“Try the converse: If Padma were a plain jane, would Salman be interested in her?”
Salman the gas station owner – maybe. Salman the writer – unlikely.
only if he still had the Booker Prizes and carried a bat…
The romantic in me says Lakshmi swooned at Rushdie’s works, the fangirl syndrome. But then, that’s the pervasive writer’s fantasy.
Personally, I don’t know that I have an opinion about Padma Lakshmi. Impersonally, I’ll say this:
Other than being married to Rushdie, she’s written a few cookbooks, is fluent in five or six languages and has been a frequent speaker at UNIFEM conferences (United Nations Development Fund for Women), most recently on women and violence.
In regard to film, her personal website is: http://www.lakshmifilms.com
(I know all this because I work at a gas station)
all publicity she gets is got.she has put Madras on the fashion map.
Madras is considered very unfashionable even by Indian standards so more power to her
Timepass: Actually, Padma Lakshmi is considerably more talented that Vikram Chatwal. I wasn’t a big fan of her cooking show, but she has a reasonably long list of public performances at this point, and there are lots of pretty faces. She’s also very shrewd at marketing, and helps people who help her, which is rare in the fame-biz.
I actually knew Padma very well in high school. We were best friends for a couple years. She’s very intelligent. True, even with her theatre degree, she still can’t act any better than she could in high school drama class, but she remains to this day one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever known. Assuming she’s dumb just because she is beautiful is silly.
Nasty, ignorant, CRUEL Padma!
On one of her idiotic cooking programmes – about Spain – she promotes bull-fighting i.e. the torturing and stabbing to death of animals for the delectation of a whole load of primitive Southern European (mainly) peasants.
Why does Padma do this? Just for the money? Does the woman have no ethics, no dignity, no sense?
Doesn’t she know how right-wing, backward and racist the bullfighting public are?
Proof that the woman is THICK!!!
Shame on you Padma! You’re a disgrace to India, the home of respect for animals