Sex-scenes outrage taken to extremes

Dressed in underwear and a skimpy top, a woman opens the door to her teenage lover who, in the throes of sexual infatuation, has been peeping at her. As they kiss, the camera pans to her back as he slips his hand inside her knickers.

It is scenes like this - in her own movie - that have infuriated Bollywood film star Manisha Koirala.

Indian society is well known for being sexually conservative. But Indian men flock to the movies to see actresses doing dance sequences involving heaving bosoms and grinding pelvises.

Bollywood film stars are somewhat less conservative than their audiences, but Koirala is in a fit of moral outrage over her new film Ek Chhoti Si Love Story - A Little Love Story - because the director used a double to film sex scenes. She says she was kept in the dark about the scenes.

Koirala took her case to a Mumbai court, arguing that since a 'double has been used to depict me in an obscene and indecent manner', the film should not be released. The judge, after watching the film, decided the sex scenes were integral to the story and ordered the movie's release.

Abuse flew thick and fast. Director Shashilal Nair accused Koirala of dissembling, saying she knew the script and knew in advance that he would be shooting the sex scenes with a double because she was 'fat and out of shape'.