Freida Pinto and Dev Patel

London, Sept. 12: Rani Mukherjee will be in London on Monday to promote her new Yash Raj film Dil Bole Hadippa but the city is agog about another Indian actress.

Freida Pinto, alongside her Slumdog Millionaire co-star Dev Patel, has been finding herself featured in some British publication or the other almost on a daily basis.

Everyone seems to want to know the precise state of play between Freida, 24, and Dev, 19, who still lives with his mother in Harrow, north London.

Yesterday, the ES Magazine, the glossy given away free on Fridays with the London Evening Standard, noted that clients at Nobu, an expensive Japanese restaurant, included “the face of L’Oreal, Freida Pinto”.

Tossed in was the titbit that at the nearby Mayfair Hotel, which has been a sort of headquarters for the London Fashion Week, Freida “shared a suite here over the summer with boyfriend Dev Patel”.

Last Tuesday, the giveaway freesheet thelondonpaper, which is to end publication on September 17, carried an item on Freida and Dev. According to the paper, “the pair revealed that Dev has been showing off his new flame to his folks – with his sister joining the pair at the Liberty and Hermes pop-up shop launch party off Regent Street, where they were side by side all night”.

Dev is taking a break from the shooting of M. Night Shyamalan’s adventure The Last Airbender in America. Freida is in London filming Woody Allen’s untitled movie, which co-stars Antonio Banderas, Naomi Watts, Josh Brolin and Anthony Hopkins.

In April, the papers reported that Freida was photographed nestling into Dev’s shoulder during a cosy al fresco lunch date in Israel, where she was shooting a film, Miral, and the actor had flown out to see her.

Last month, they appeared together for an open air screening of Slumdog Millionaire at Somerset House in London.

Today’s Daily Mail, which insists “love is in the air”, carries a photograph of Freida and Dev holding hands as they leave last night’s party at Asprey, the Bond Street jewellers who are a favourite with the superrich and smash-and-grab burglars.

The Mail says that “the Slumdog Millionaire co-stars were all smiles as they held hands”. This time Freida “looked stunning in a one-shouldered purple mini-dress and black satin peep-toe heels, while Dev looked dapper in a black trousers suit. The young couple were guests at the Bafta private dinner at the store”.

The actress had remained coy over their romance when she attended the GQ Men of the Year Awards recently, the Mail recalls.

She protested: “Why does everybody ask me where Dev is? I don’t know where he is, I don’t have him on a leash, he’s doing his own thing. I don’t know what’s going on. I find it funny that people are so interested in what we’re doing.”

Most stories on the couple have two quotes. The one from Anil Kapoor says: “When I meet them, I feel there is something happening. They have a magical chemistry.”

The other is from Freida’s former fiance, Rohan Antao, long left sulking in Mumbai: “I don’t know if they were having a sexual relationship but if I came face to face with him I would have things to say. Now everywhere I go I see them on billboards. I am devastated.”

Rohan can have one consolation, though. Freida and Dev have become so lovey-dovey that one of the tabloids will soon invariably carry a story: “Are they the most annoying couple in Britain?”