India’s weight-loss guru Rujuta Diwekar on why grandma knows best

Rujuta Diwekar is considered India’s weight-loss guru, with a client roster that boasts Indian tycoons like Anil Ambani to Bollywood stars like Kareena Kapoor Khan.

“Rujuta Diwekar doesn’t measure her weight and height,” I was informed over email by her office, which signed off as “Team Rujuta”. From someone who is considered India’s weight-loss guru and whose name still conjures up the image of Bollywood star Kareena Kapoor Khan’s body transformation to a skin-and-bones “size zero” for the sake of a bikini scene in a 2008 Bollywood movie, that would be an odd response. But Mumbai-based Diwekar, whose clients are spread across 50 countries and include some of India’s top Bollywood stars and business tycoons, has always gone against the grain.