At the Satyajit Ray residence in May 2002.

In her room at a city hotel in January 2004. Pictures by Pabitra Das

Dwikhandita: Split in Two. A weight loss guide with “before and after” pictures of the author.

This could be the cover of Taslima Nasreen’s next bestseller — and with no fear of being banned.

The 41-year-old fugitive author, in town for the Calcutta Book Fair that will carry two of her new titles, is enjoying her new look enough to conjure up a book she will never pen to rake in the millions.

“Did you see me the last time I was here?” asks the bubbly writer, who has had fundamentalists baying for her blood ever since 1989, when she first began to write about religion and rights.

She spreads her arms, indicating her previous girth. She has lost “30 kg in two months”. High blood pressure and a family history of diabetes geared up the Harvard University “research scholar” enough to get into shape.

Half-an-hour walks every morning and time spent in the gym and the swimming pool helped, but the clincher was “cutting down on carbohydrates” and eating foods with a low glycemic index, sticking more to vegetables and fish, saying no to mutton and butter.

“But I didn’t torture myself. I still went out with friends and enjoyed my meals,” smiles the now-slender writer. During her stay in Taj Bengal, she is passing up five-star food for the home-cooked meals a friend sends her.

Nasreen feels far more “energetic” having shed the excess flab and her health concerns have all but disappeared. “I saw myself on TV the other day and couldn’t recognise myself,” she laughs.

Plucking at the sky blue Snoopy nightshirt she is wearing above black trousers and white heels, she adds: “This is my 10-year-old niece’s shirt. It felt good to be able to slip into this and it’s great fun to go out and shop for a whole new wardrobe.”

Gone are the colourless shapeless sacks and the “huge trousers”. Red and shapely are all Taslima Nasreen sees nowadays. The ruling reds may have tried to shut her up, but the contents of her suitcase prove that she can’t get enough of the colour. An irony that is not lost on her.

Friends in Calcutta couldn’t recognise Nasreen when she arrived last Wednesday. Once they did, their healthy concern was voiced in true Bengali style. “Roga is what they call me now, but that is a negative term, hinting that there’s something wrong with my health,” says Nasreen.

Slimming down has given her the feel-good factor of setting a goal and achieving it, the extra stamina for the three things she loves best (“adda, travelling and having fun”), and an idea for a new book. “In the US, if you can write a book about losing weight, you can make millions,” she jokes, while insisting that physical appearance can never a writer make or unmake.

But the image and the author have never been far removed, feels Sunil Gangopadhyay. “Some people would keep beards, others long hair, anything to create the impression that they are not ‘normal’ people,” says the leading Bengali writer, who cannot be accused of weight watch.

Or take the original writer-in-hiding, Salman Rushdie, who is rarely ever photographed —balding and pot-bellied — without the stunning Padma Lakshmi by his side these days.