Deepika Padukone

Deepika Padukone / Dipika Padukone

The daughter of the renowned World Badminton Champion, Prakash Padukone, the girl known for her innocent looks and ravishing onscreen appearances, Deepika Padukone has certainly something that sets herself apart from the rest.

Deepika Padukone was born on 5th January 1986 in Bangalore, Karnataka. She has done her schooling in Bangalore. She has been modelling appearances in print and television advertising campaigns for Liril soap, Close-Up toothpaste and Limca, receiving many prestigious modelling offers, including brand ambassadorship of the Jewels of India, an annual jewellery exhibition. She hit the international scene when Maybelline made her their new international cover face.

At the fifth annual Kingfisher Fashion Awards, for Indian models and designers, she was awarded the title of Model of the Year. Shortly afterwards, she was chosen as one of the models for the Kingfisher Swimsuit Calendar for 2006, thus cementing her reputation as a supermodel. She also bagged two trophies at the Idea Zee F Awards in 2006 - Female Model of the year (Commercial Assignments) and Fresh Face of the year.

Like many successful models before her Deepika is turning to acting in movies. She started by starring in the music video for Naam Hai Tera a song from the pop album Aap Ka Suroor, an independent album by popular singer-composer Himesh Reshammiya.

Deepika recently made her cinematic debut in a Kannada film, Aishwarya, directed by Indrajit Lankesh co-starring Upendra.

The film has already been successful at the box-office, and Deepika has received rave reviews for her screen presence. Reportedly, she has also signed on two Hindi movies - Priyadarshan's forthcoming film, Pirate and Farah Khan's second directorial venture, Om Shanti Om.

Deepika Padukone

One catches Deepika Padukone in a fiery mood. And rightly so. Right after a very public break up with Ranbir Kapoor, she has found herself in the midst of one rumour after another. Whether it was her alleged proximity to Farhan Akhtar during the making of Karthik Calling Karthik (something which was rubbished in no uncertain terms by both the actors) or her so-called refusal to work with Ranbir (which was again passed off as idle gossip by people close to the actor), Deepika had to face an unnecessary storm when she would have rather spoken about her work.

In a happy professional scenario that she is currently enjoying with a line up of projects round the corner, she is also (unnecessarily) forced to spend her time and energy in response to insinuations that she could well be dating Siddharth Mallya. For the uninitiated, Siddharth is the son of liquor baron Vijay Mallya who is also the owner of Royal Challengers Bangalore, an IPL team for which Deepika Padukone is the Brand Ambassador.

"If I am sitting with the owner of my IPL team, there is no reason why I should be linked up to him", Deepika flares up the moment this topic of discussion opens up, "If I am the face of the team, isn't it obvious that I would be sitting up with? I would be there with him supporting my team, right? It's but obvious that I would also be photographed. But does that mean I am going around with a guy? Come on, let's grow up. All of this just doesn't make any sense at all."

Perhaps this is also because of her current 'single status'.

"You know, all of this has become way too predictable", Deepika forces a smile here, "Every fortnight there is one link up or another. Today, even if I go out with my cousin brother, I am sure to see a headline next morning with announcement of yet another new relationship of mine. Really, it's all such a big joke now."

How are her parents reacting to such 'jokes'? Don't they get furious when stories about her daughter fill tabloids for all the wrong reasons when instead she should have been in news for the plethora of work that she currently had in hand.

"I think even my parents have really given up now", she sighs, "There is absolutely nothing for my parents as well to react at all. There are no clarifications required. All they want now is to read about the work that I am doing and this is what they expect from people as well. Of course initially it used to bother them as well me. I used to clarify about these news pieces and everyone would understand that eventually there was no truth in it all. However, now since I have been in the industry for 3 years now, all of us understand that most of the written word is untrue after all."
- By Joginder Tuteja