Indians in New York aRE not exactly surprised that Padma Lakshmi — or Lady Rushdie as she can apparently choose to call herself following her husband’s knighthood — has decided to bring her three-year-old marriage to Salman Rushdie to an end.

“It was a done deal when they got married,” is the opinion of one mover and shaker on the New York circuit. “Before, no one knew who she was. Now, at least, people know her. I wouldn’t be surprised if she gets picked up by some rich hedge fund guy — there are plenty of those around in New York.”

Even those who like Padma — and plenty of people fall into this category (the late Ismail Merchant found her “intelligent”) — describe her as “very ambitious”.

One of her male co-stars on the set of Boom, Kaizad Gustad’s 2003 movie which starred Padma alongside Madhu Sapre and Katrina Kaif and which failed to get an Oscar, was quite taken by the irreverent manner in which she would address Amitabh Bachchan, who was also in the movie.

“While it is customary to address him as ‘Sir’, Padma would say, ‘Hey, Amitabh, you are not changing the lines, are you?’, ‘Hey, Amitabh, what time are you coming tomorrow?’, ‘Hey Amitabh, you are not wearing that shirt, are you, it’s hideous!’,” recalled the actor, mimicking her voice.

He added: “She was full of energy. I liked her enormously. As to why she married Rushdie, it’s because she thought she would be able to wine and dine with the rich and famous.”

Perhaps it would have been wrong to have expected Indian-style meekness or reverence for seniors from Padma, who was born in what was then Madras on September 1, 1970, but who moved to America at the age of four after her parents’ divorce and was brought up by her mother on her modest nurse’s salary.

Outwardly, Padma might look “Indian” but, as she herself once pointed out: “I’m an American.”

IN HAPPIER TIMES: Padma Lakshmi and Salman Rushdie

One can only guess at this but Rushdie’s mistake might have been to think he was getting an Indian girl. He had come to England from Cathedral School in Bombay at the age of 14, had apparently been unhappy at Rugby where he said he suffered from racist taunts and met English women at Cambridge. Later on, as he became more and more famous, many an English girl would have wanted to go out with the celebrity author of Midnight’s Children and The Satanic Verses. Khomeini’s fatwa would have, if anything, increased his desirability in the eyes of English women, especially in London’s literary circuit.

He had probably never really had a real Indian girlfriend when he met Padma at a New York party in 1999 held to mark the launch of Tina Brown’s Talk magazine (that never took off). After the collapse of his third marriage, he married her in 2004.

It’s impossible for outsiders to guess what happened inside their marriage but it could well be he was not an easy man to live with. From time to time, he would disappear back to England to be with his sons, Zafar (born 1980), from his first marriage to the late Clarissa Luard, and Milan (1999), from his third to Elizabeth West — there were no children from his marriage to his second wife, the American author, Marianne Wiggins. This might not have been easy for Padma to accept.

Also, for 10 years, after Khomeini issued his fatwa in 1989, Rushdie had lived a twilight existence, never entirely sure whether he was safe. That he has emerged to lead a near normal life says a lot for his resilience, especially as part of the British media either found no merit in his writings or thought he should have expressed much greater gratitude to Britain for looking after him.

Compared with wives one and three and even two, Padma was a much more driven creature. It must have annoyed her to read suggestions that she had married Rushdie as a career move.

To be fair to her, her cookery book, Easy Exotic: A Model’s Lowfat Recipes from Around the World, published by Miramax Books, has done well. However, even those who have little knowledge of Indian cooking will be puzzled by her recipe for coconut chicken which includes “2 tsp hot Madras curry powder”.

Madras curry powder has not been seen in Britain for about 40 years and harks back to the bad old days of colonels returning from the Raj. Today, no one uses it in the UK, no Indian chef, anyway.

Still, the book won the 1999 Versailles World Cookbook Fair Award for Best First Book, though some readers might have been unaware such a prize existed. But in Padma’s eyes, perhaps this put her on level pegging with her Booker Prize winning husband.

“After all, I was a published author before I met Salman,” she once pointed out. “In fact, it was my publisher who introduced us.”

It is to Padma’s great credit that she has made New York work for her. Having done some modelling in Italy, she described herself as the “first Indian supermodel” and projected herself as an actress though she had mostly done bit parts here and there. Pre-Salman, little was written about her. Post-Salman, her cuttings folder has bulged, with references to her Brahmin background and how her names — Padma and Lakshmi — were those of goddesses. It could be that the happening folk of New York were overcome to discover a goddess in their midst.

The 24-year age differ- ence with her husband probably did not have much to do with it — Rushdie could have had a 21-year-old if he had so wanted. At their wedding, when she wore a pink sari and he a sherwani, Rushdie risked a little joke.

“Three goddesses in one,” he said. “How could I pass this up, even if I am an atheist?”

Padma’s greatest triumph was yet to come. When Newsweek did a major story on “The New India,” it illustrated its analysis of the Indian economic miracle by putting Padma on the cover —though it was not immediately clear how she was linked to the country’s 8 per cent GDP growth, being a New Yorker who had made only occasional trips to India , usually with her husband. Again, credit where it is due: the camera loves her.

In retrospect, Rushdie might have done better not to have married her but he was — and probably still is — in love. Approaching 40, Padma will now have to prove she does not trade on being Rushdie’s ex, as she prepares to give interviews to promote her new book, Tangy, Tart, Hot and Sweet.