Describing her lover Salman Rushdie as a "fabulous conversationalist" and a "great friend," model Padma Lakshmi says she fell in love with the controversial Indian-born novelist at first sight.

"It was love at first sight," Chennai-born US-based model and cookery writer, who plays the lead role in the Hindujas' financed film Boom, said in an interview published in the Evening Standard here on Saturday evening.

Recalling her first meeting with Rushdie four years ago at a star-studded New York party to launch the now defunct Talk magazine, Lakshmi said: "I was just fascinated. What he means for Indian literature - for an American it would be like meeting Hemingway or Faulkner."

Referring to the film Boom , scheduled for premiere on August 22, Lakshmi said: "I am pinning much hope on its success."

Denying reports of their separation, she told the Evening Standard that she and Booker prize winner Rushdie shared a Manhattan flat and were still happy together.

"I have a job of my own and it requires that I travel. I have a place in Los Angeles and he's got a place in London, so we're rarely in the same place at the same time. It doesn't work out always... Any couple will tell you that it's hard," she said.