Indian icons Virat Kohli and Aishwarya Rai share something in common with American celebrity Oprah Winfrey. What? Really? Yes. To find out what's the common denominator you will have to read this article...

Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper Virat Kohli, Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and American TV legend Oprah Winfrey are three very disparate people and at first glance don't share anything in common. Well, actually, they do. What you may ask.

The common denominator binding the three of them together is: The Color Purple.

While Kohli is going through a purple patch, Aishwarya is in the news for her purple lipstick and Oprah, well, she made her big screen debut in 'The Color Purple' film - way back in 1985.

Kohli has been in the form of his life and almost single-handedly took his IPL team to final. He scored a fifty in the final too, but failed to ensure his team's victory as Sunrisers Hyderabad were crowned new IPL champions.

But the 27-year-old, with 973 runs scored from 16 matches, is the highest-scoring batsman in a single season in IPL's 9-year history. He finished the tournament with an astounding average of 81.08 and and equally impressive strike-rate of 152.03. He hit an unbelievable four hundreds and seven half-centuries, not to forget 83 boundaries and a staggering 38 sixes.


He has set numerous records in IPL 9 -- too many actually to enumerate in this article. But here are some of them: He has scored the most centuries by a player in a single IPL season - 4; He has most 50-plus scores in a single year in T20 cricket -- 18; He is the first captain in IPL to post 500-plus runs in three separate seasons (He scored 634 runs in 2013 and 505 runs in 2015).

He has also been named as the third-most marketable player in the world, ahead of tennis ace Novak Djokovic, football 'God' Lionel Messi and 'King of the track' Usain Bolt, according to a survey by a UK-based magazine.



Aishwarya's purple lip colour on the day five of Cannes film festival became the talk of the town recently. Cliff Richard sang of 'Lucky Lips', well, Ash's 'Purple Lips' (or lavender-blue lips for the more fashion conscious) could soon see a song being written on them.

But Aishwarya is in the public eye as an actress, so let's talk about that. She has hit a purple patch of sorts in that field with the choice of films of late. She has 'come back' to 'Bollywood' with the clear agenda of being seen as more than just a beauty queen.


Both 'Jazbaa' and 'Sarbjit' are unconventional roles that have forced the audience to see her as an actress and not merely as a beautiful face and a 'heroine'.

She has also received positive response from the audience for her performance in the film 'Sarbjit'.

Now, let's talk about the American legend.

62-year-old Oprah is best known for her talk show 'The Oprah Winfrey Show', which was the highest-rated TV programme of its kind in history. Dubbed the 'Queen of All Media', she, according to Wikipedia, has been ranked the richest African-American of the 20th century, is the greatest black philanthropist in American history, and is currently North America's first and only multi-billionaire black person.


In 1985, Winfrey co-starred in the Steven Spielberg-directed 'The Color Purple', based on Toni Morrison's novel as 'Sofia'. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance. The film went on to become a Broadway musical which opened in late 2005, with Winfrey as a producer.

So not only do the trio rule their fields, they are bound by 'purple' also. Now, Aishwarya would want people to move on from her purple lips, Virat is winning the 'Orange Cap' and, well, Oprah wants people to move beyond colours.