Name: Kali Omaja Desai (credited Cal Desai)
Age: 32
Gender: Female
Nationality: English (3rd Generation)
Place of Birth: Birmingham
Blood type: O+
Role: Occult Debunker
Sexual Orientation: Heterosexual
Theme Tune: "Double Life" (Styx)

Description

Kali (presenting as Cal) is tall and svelte, the latter in both sense of the term: she's slender and delightfully feminine while at the same time blandly pleasant of demeanour most times, at least publicly.  (In private she can be quite a bit more assertive or, as her—usually male—detractors would have it: bitchy.)  Swarthy of skin, dark of eye and hair, Kali is an attractive example of brahmin-caste India.

And she knows it.

She weaponizes it, in fact, carefully selecting clothing, accessories, and even grooming notes like makeup and hairstyle, that is conservative by any sane standards yet somehow calls attention to every physical charm she has, whether it's the long, slender legs, the plump, lush lips, ruthlessly painted to scarlet perfection, or even small things like the very carefully trimmed eyebrows shaped in a very faint hook over each eye.

When she stands or sits, her posture is impeccable, even when relaxing.  When she walks it's like she's balancing a plate of marbles on her head, despite the persistent, subtle sway she puts into both shoulder and hip.

The outer self

Calm.  Cool.  Self-possessed.  Curious.  Knowledgeable.  And tough as nails when facing falsehood.  Cal has made a career out of tackling the most skilled fake psychics and exposing them to the public with brilliantly-feigned "tough love" compassion.  She manages to even pull off the brilliant trick of being a "rational skeptic" and "open-minded" at the same time.

Even, often, among her victims.

The inner self

Find out IC … ;)

List their desires and hopes

Find out IC … ;)

List their fears and dislikes

Publicly known:

• She is vegetarian (but not vegan).

Strengths

Publicly known:

• World class occult researcher due to almost obsessive study.
  
• Skilled investigator, always digging up interesting facts to help in debunking.
  
• Skilled interviewer, adept at putting subjects off their guard to expose weakness.
  
• Skilled presenter, able to make audiences relate to her and find her likeable, even when being cruel to a target.
  
• Massive polyglot, specializing in ancient languages.  Speaks, reads, and writes English and Hindi like a native.  Reads and writes in addition Sanskrit, classical Chinese, Sumerian, Babylonian, various ancient Egyptian, classical Latin, classical Greek, Aramaic, ancient Hebrew, ancient Arabic, classical Farsi, and other languages in that vein well enough to read with expert-grade fluency original texts of many occult works.
  
• Skilled at the use of modern media to generate income: focusing on social and outsider media.

Weaknesses

Publicly known:

• Obsessive about debunking psychics.
  
• Stubborn to a fault.
  
• Fanatically skeptical.

Known family

Aadya Nalini Desai, mother, housewife, still alive.
Darshan Vipin Desai, father, mechanical engineer, still alive.

Easily-found history

The Desai family has been in England for three generations.  Neither her parents nor she speaks with even a hint of the stereotypical "Indian accent" (unless she's taking the piss, which she occasionally does if people make bad assumptions about her).

Kali went to Oxford for her B.A. in Literature, then did the unheard of and moved over to Cambridge for her Masters in Ancient Literature before leaving university (eschewing her Ph.D. as a "waste of time and sanity") and embarking on a career as a professional presenter.  She later broke off on her own as an "expert debunker" which she translated into a top-rated Youtube channel, among other media both in the social sphere and in the form of DVD releases and the occasional television special.

Potential relationships

A cross-the-divide romance would be interesting: a psychic that she's trying to debunk being a romantic partner on the sly causing a bit of an ethical quandry as well as a bit of strife in said romance.

Someone related to a past victim of her crusade against psychic fraud (or who maybe is such a victim) could be interesting as well.

Psychic abilities

That would be telling!  Find out IC.  If there's anything to find out.  Which there definitely isn't, so don't bother looking.  Really.  Honestly.  Huge waste of time.

Dark and dirty secrets

There's something there for people to dig up if they're really out for Cal's blood.  Drop me a PM if you want to go this route.

Things you might know her for

Cal broke into the skeptical scene with a huge, well-researched, absurdly detailed (including a look at secrets that raised quite a few eyebrows) of one Ethan James, dubbed "England's Uri Gellar".  By the time she was through with him in a multi-part television special she'd conclusively cast his powers into doubt, exposed his allies in the entertainment industry that covered for him, and even played a videotaped tour of his workshop where he faked his tricks to him for live reactions in front of a studio audience.

After that she split off from the Beeb and went independent, beginning with self-produced documentaries in which she exposed one psychic medium, astrologer, etc. after another, beginning with the small fish before going up the ranks into some of the biggest names in the field.  Initially self-publishing DVDs, she rapidly switched to social media, streaming and even live streaming as the technology advanced to keep up with her needs.

Her interview style has been termed "courteously confrontational" with her maintaining an on-screen persona of open curiosity even while she eviscerated people, stripping them of all artifice and affect to reveal the truth of their scam.

Some of her victims still liked her even after her videos destroyed their livelihood.

Some.

A partial list of some of her exposés, post Ethan James, includes:

• Edith Keller, a spirit medium on the Isle of Man.  Her first DVD exposé.
  
• Frank Logan, the "Dowsing Deacon" of Derbyshire.
  
• Alan Wainwright, the "Wily Wiccan" of Westmorland.  Her first foray into self-proclaimed spell casters.  Eviscerated just on the knowledge front as Cal brought her huge array of original text knowledge to bear against an "obvious charlatan" who'd read "Penguin adaptations" of the holy writings he professed to follow.
  
• The Merseyside Mangler, a ghost story that involved mutilation of farm animals, exposed as the village of Rainford's council trying to drum up tourism business in their town.  Her first social media streaming video.  Considered a bit of a shaky success.
  
• Faye Campbell, the "Suffolk Pychograph".  Her first live streaming debunking which mixed pre-recorded reveals while her subject was in front of her and smugly trying to pass off her handiwork as psychic powers.