London: Controversial India-born writer Salman Rushdie is all set to enter into wedlock for the fourth time - this time with Chennai-born 32-year-old model-turned-actress Padma Lakshmi in New York.

Fifty-six year old Rushdie's forthcoming marriage is a subject of fascination for a number of reasons, 'The Observer' daily wrote today (Apr 11, 2004).

"First, and probably foremost in many minds, is the visual incongruity of an alliance between a svelte 32-year-old model-turned actress and a grizzled 56-year-old man of letters. It does not seem to matter how many times, down the ages, the older, rich man gets the fresh young filly, it never ceases to cause onlookers a reflexive double-take.

"Second, the relationship between Rushdie and his fiancé, Padma Lakshmi, had long ago been consigned to the dustbin of dished dirt. The story was that their love would never survive a damaging rumour that went around about a year ago, to the effect that Lakshmi did not stimulate her partner intellectually. Citing the time-honoured difficulties of maintaining a long-distance relationship (he lives in New York, she in Los Angeles), the couple were officially calling off the affair, or so announced the diarists of the glitterati in London and Manhattan," the paper said.

Rushdie, author of the award winning novel, 'Midnight's Children', once had a £ 1.5 million bounty on his head for his controversial book, 'The Satanic Verses'.

Rushdie first married Clarissa Luard, with whom he has a grown up son. He then married Marianne Wiggins, before meeting his third bride-to-be Elizabeth West, in 1990, when the effects of the Iranian fatwa still dominated his existence.

He has a seven-year-old son, Milan, with West, a woman whom he has credited with saving his life during a dark period. "In a time of bad luck, she was my good luck."

Nevertheless, an encounter with Lakshmi at the launch of the ill-fated 'Talk' magazine at the Statue of Liberty in 1999 began a new romantic chapter.

Rushdie's work, and particularly his second book, 'Midnight's Children', has had a huge impact on British literary culture, the report said.

"The thing I find fantastically satisfying is that, 18 years after its publication, people still read 'Midnight's Children'," Rushdie had said.