Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi reveals she was called 'Blackie' in school, avoided the sun fearing she would 'darken she was from a lower caste of Indian society' and changed her name to Angelique to hide her heritage

'To many Americans, my skin color signaled third-world slums as seen in Indiana Jones movies, malaria, hot curry and "stinky" food,' Padma Lakshmi,writes in her new memoir. Top Chef felt like a pact with the devil. 

She had a stomach paunch and an unsightly pudge on the back of her arms - she gained 17 pounds. When she married British-Indian novelist Salman Rushdie in 2004, all of her insecurities surfaced. 

She was diagnosed with a massive case of crippling endometriosis that effectively terminated their sex life and their marriage. 

Lakshmi, 45, now lives in New York City with her daughter Krishna. Her book also details her rape when she was a young girl and and her lesbian fling.