Daily Mail faces Indian fans' fury for not recognising Deepika

UK's Daily Mail maybe a champion in stalking British and Hollywood celebrities, but in India it has hit the headlines with comments that are, for many Indians movie fans, akin to an insult.

Indian superstar Deepika Padukone is in Los Angeles shooting for her Hollywood debut 'xXx' opposite Vin Diesel.

The actress, who is the daughter of Badminton great Prakash Padukone, bonded with ace tennis player Novak Djokovic recently.

The duo was spotted exiting from celebrity hot-bed The Nice Guy in Los Angeles as reported by dailymail.co.uk.

The site which broke the story did not recognise Deepika, calling her Djokovic's 'female companion'.

People could be forgiven for not knowing her, but Daily Mail, which thrives on celebrity gossip, has been lambasted by Indian fans and media for not knowing their female superstar.

One such headline reads: "Dear Daily Mail, the 'female companion' you spotted with Djokovic is our superstar Deepika Padukone."

Another one reads, "Oops! UK daily FAILS to recognise Deepika Padukone with Novak Djokovic."

Throughout the article, Daily Mail has made references to Deepika by calling her 'impeccably turned-out friend', 'leggy brunette', 'the pretty lady', saluting her beauty.

The actresses' fans are dissing this ignorance.

The English Daily's comment section has been littered with angry posts - some abusive, others giving her bio in short.

Freedom_Indian wrote: Hahaha Daily Mail u need to do more homework and understand about rest of world. The lady is one of the highest paid leading ladies of Indian cinema called Bollywood - Deepika Padukone (Daughter of famed Indian badminton star Prakash Padukone) and her beau is Ranveer Singh, they are pretty much blissfully together. So don't speculate unnecessarily."

Another commenter wrote, "Shame on you, u should be aware of what is going on around the world. Deepika Padukone has 30.9M fans on Facebook six times the tennis player (sic)."

Neil Mezi made sure Daily Mail never forgets who Deepika is: "1. Deepika is top Bollywood actress and national level badminton champ. She is daughter of Indian Badminton legend Prakash Padukone. 2. Her boyfriend is Ranveer Singh who she is happy with. 3. She is family friend to Novak and his wife through "Indian premier tennis league" where they met. Many international tennis star(Novak, Roger etc) come and play in India. They have become friends with Bollywood stars (Aamir Khan, Deepika, Akshay Kumar and hang out when they meet).. 4. Deepika is in west to shoot for Vin diesel's "The return of Xander Cage" 5. She's rich, not fame hungry (she's A-lister in India) and she is not one night stand girl.. Respect other country culture and friendship between two people."

Hellsangel205 tried to reason out the outrage, "I guess it was just an honest mistake. Deepika Padukone is famous only in India as a Bollywood actress movies. Don't make it an issue of knowing Novak and not her. Novak's a champion who has won accolades all around the world, hence that may be a cause aiding in him being recognisable. Our Indian journos wouldn't be able to recognize everyone from Hollywood too."

On Twitter too fans were up in arms against the daily and Deepika Padukone was one of the top trending topics on Twitter in India.

"Daily Mail - 'The leggy brunette', 'Female companion', 'Pretty Lady' - that's an Indian superstar (sic)."

One tweet reads, "Surprising that Daily Mail couldn't recognize Deepika Padukone, though she's quite popular now, even entered Hollywood (sic)."

Another tweet reads, "Djokovic spotted with Deepika Padukone... Daily Mail describes her as an (anonymous) leggy brunette... funny piece (sic)."

Someone wrote in disbelieve, "Deepika Padukone spotted with Djokovic. Daily Mail fails to identify the XXX star, refers to her as 'female companion', How?! (sic)."

This jingoistic attack on the UK daily is unnecessary. It magnifies the point that India, with the second largest population in the world, has only a handful of stars recognised worldwide.

The bitter truth is that Deepika may be successful in India, but with 'xXx' she is only taking baby steps to worldwide stardom and nobody beyond India knows her - yet.

One Twitter user has a point that needs to be highlighted and silent all superfluous outrage.

Suprateek Chatterjee said: "...Ask average Indian journo to tell difference b/w David Bowie and Tilda Swinton."