London: Just less than a year after his marriage with his fourth wife Padma Laksmi ended, speculations are rife that British-Indian novelist Sir Salmam Rushdie has got a new, and even younger, woman in his life.

Sir Salman (60) has been spotted with Aimee Mullins, a 32-year-old champion athlete-turned model, at a bash at Soho Grand Hotel in Manhattan recently.

"Aimee said, We're good friends, we are close friends." They certainly looked like they were on a date. They arrived together, left together and were being touchy freely. Salman would take her arm as they walked around the room and when he was talking to people, she'd wait a step behind him. She said they'd been to another movie earlier that day and they'd been drinking together since the afternoon.

"We've been hanging out together for the day. I'm a little drunk," she said, "and we're tired," the Daily Mail quoted a guest at that party as saying.

The daughter of a working-class Irish immigrant to the United States, Aimee, 28 years younger to Sir Salman, was born without any shin bones and had both her legs amputated below the knee when she was just a year old. For most of her life, she wore cheap, unsightly and clumsy artificial stumps yet she became a champion athlete and long jumper, setting world records at the 1996 Paralympics in the 100 metres, the 200 metres and the long jump.

She has also forged a lucrative career as a model, starring in numerous catwalk shows and appearing on the cover of fashion magazines. People magazine has listed her as one of the world's top 50 beauties.

Source : PTI