Deepika Padukone: Bollywood's hottest desi girl!

Nobody does ethnic chic as well as D-Pad!

Being a Kannadiga born in Denmark, raised in Bangalore and pursuing a career in Hindi films in Mumbai, Deepika Padukone is as eclectic as it gets.

It's a good thing too.

She isn't weighed down by the baggage of fixed imagery and blends seamlessly in characters hailing from different regions of India.

To think, she's even played a Chinese once.

On that note, here's a look at DeePad's various ethnic avatars.

Piku

The 29-year-old plays the titular role of an urban, independent Bengali girl in Shoojit Sircar's upcoming movie about a father-daughter pair taking a road trip to Kolkata.

Deepika learnt some basic Bangla as part of her preparation.

In an interview, she talked about how a lot of people mistook her for Bengali during her modeling days because of her “big round eyes.”

Goliyon Ki Raasleela: Ram Leela

After transforming Aishwarya Rai into a traditional Gujarati girl in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali obliged another South Indian beauty for the same through the making of his star-crossed romance, Goliyon Ki Raasleela: Ram Leela.

Again, Deepika took lessons to brush up her Gujarati before slipping in colourful ghagra-cholis and essay one of her most acclaimed performances.

Finding Fanny

Before playing a Goan Catholic in his Finding Fanny, the leggy superstar also starred as a wild Christian NRI in Homi Adajania's love triangle Cocktail.

Her cross-sporting young widow, a do-gooder but blunt Angie doesn't bat an eyelid in confessing, “The first time I was kissed was on my wedding day. 15 minutes before my husband choked and died. I am a virgin.”

Chennai Express

While some found her Tam-Bram avatar bordering on parody, others plain laughed at her comic timing.

Deepika Padukone's 'bokwas' commentary as the runaway bride Meenalochni Azhagusundaram in Rohit Shetty's farcical Chennai Express hit quite a chord.

The actress acknowledges her Kannada roots helped in grasping Tamil quicker than usual.

Happy New Year

As the livewire, lower middle-class Maharastrian girl dancing in bars to make a living, Deepika's nose-ringed Mohini Joshi is every bit of a nautanki.

Yet, in typical Bollywood tradition, Happy New Year picks on her defective 'Englees' too often for its own good.

Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani

The Punjabis of a Dharma/Yashraj confection aren't just boisterous and bullish but slim and sexy too.

And though she, mercifully, doesn't screech 'Oye' and guzzle a gallon of lassi, Deepika's dainty Naina Talwar conveys the glamorous Punju prototype with effortless conviction in Manish Malhotra's candy-toned salwars and cocktail saris.

Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey

Before Piku, Deepika played a Bengali in Karthik Calling Karthik but more memorably in Ashutosh Gowarikar's period drama concerning Chittagong Uprising, Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey.

Clad in simple cotton saris and neatly plaited hair, her interpretation of revolutionary Kalpana Datta is picture of earnest grace if not simmering fortitude.

Break Ke Baad

Religious bearings of its lead characters Imran Khan and Deepika are never the subject of debate in rom-com Break Ke Baad.

Yet it's interesting to notice one of the more liberal, modern and healthy portrayals of an ambitious urban Muslim woman in Padukone's Aaliya Khan as opposed to the demure, conservative stereotypes from Bollywood.

Lafangey Pariney

As the blind Maharashtrian girl residing in one of the congested neighbourhoods of Mumbai, Deepika's Pinky Palkar doesn't make a lasting impression.

Regardless, her know-how in Konkani made Marathi a cakewalk for the actress who also took skating tuitions for the role in Pradeep Sarkar's indifferently received Lafangey Parindey.