PhotoShop™ is a crucial piece of software in the laptops of Indian celebrities—and Botox™ a vital vial in their make-up kit—especially when they have to deal with a newspaper or magazine profile. And brave is the bold-faced name that appears in print with neither weapon having been deftly employed to perform its optical illusions.
India Today founder Aroon Purie‘s elder daughter Kalli Purie shows she is one.
Chief creative officer Kalli, who is in charge of the digital side of the magazine group’s operations and is widely expected to take over the mantle sooner than later, has recounted her “story of weight lost and a life gained” in Confessions of a Serial Dieter, published by the India Today imprint HarperCollins.
And this week’s issue of the weekly newsmagazine carries a spunky three-page excerpt of the Oxford mom-of-two’s journey from “fat to fabulous”; from an “ugly duckling” of 103 kg (in picture, left) to a “beautiful swan” of 59 kg (right) in three years flat (all adjectives courtesy the author).
An accompanying infographic tracks the “fatline” of the pioneering publisher’s daughter at various stages of her life:
Age 4: weight 32 kg, jam toast diet
Age 16: 63 kg, garbage soup diet
Age 24: 59 kg, coconut water diet
Age 35: 103 kg, the panjari ladoo diet
Age 38: weight 59 kg, the champagne diet
Kalli details the 46 diets that made her lose 45 kg, to slip from a size 18 to a size 8, and explains the role love played as an antidote: “Love is a super motivator. I stuck to a (weight-loss) programme because I had a deadline, a loveline.”
Eventually, though, she lays it all at the door of a sparkling white liquid.
“My brother-in-law is French. He drinks champagne like the English drink tea. Anytime, anywhere. He would come for tea to the house it would be the standard chai-samosa-jalebi affair. When I asked what he would like to drink he would look uncomfortable for a moment, look at my sister (Koel Purie) for reassurance and when she sighed with resignation, he would say ‘Champagne, please!’ At four in the afternoon!
“For as long as I can remember, our traditional Sunday family lunch has been chicken biryani and parantha, a menu handed down over generations. There have been many aberrations but since the inclusion of a Frenchman in the family, champagne has become an essential addition to the Sunday routine. It is now a family tradition. As a result I have become a champagneholic. And that is the origin of this diet.”
End result: today people often ask Kalli, ‘Hey, where did you leave the rest of you?’
Images: courtesy India Today
Buy the book: Confessions of a Serial Dieter
Watcha video of the book launch: Kalli Purie
Also read: Aroon Purie: Indian papers are in a time warp
‘Rule no.1 of journalism: there are no gods’
IJR 
Maybe I am not thinking straight from a lack of sleep, but I don’t get it – what is the point of this post vs what you usually publish?
Who cares whether Kallie is fat or slim. Aroon Purie and his daughters spend a lot on all this show off but they dont think twice before sacking people from any of their organisations. Mail today sacked so many people.
Businessman like Aroon Purie and many like him in newspaper business should learn that they should not hire if they cannot sustain their organisation. First they recruit people after that they screw their career by sacking them.
stop destroying careers.