The controversy heated up ever since Koirala asked Bal Thackeray to step in as the cultural policeman and pronounce his judgment. Shashilal Nair has also approached Thackeray to convince him about his point of view. The Sena Chief has agreed to watch the movie first before giving his opinion.

Inspired by the English movie, “Summer of 1942” “Ek Choti Si Love Story” is about an adolescent boy’s infatuation with a woman much older to him in age. The female character has a boy friend in the movie and both are involved in several intimate scenes. The controversy that Koirala raked up is that these scenes, which have been shot with a body double, are vulgar and needs to be deleted.

The censor board had already cleared the movie, but the actress approached the lower court in Mumbai demanding the deletion of certain scenes. But the court gave its ruling against her saying that the movie demanded those scenes as they were essential to the story.

The actress then went to the National Commission for Women, approached IB Minister Sushma Swaraj, moved Mumbai High court and sought justice from Shiv Sena Chief Bala Thakeray. Ms Koirala tried to plead that she had been exploited as an actress and that the director Shasilal Nair had duped her by using some one else’s body to spice up the movie with lewd sexual content. Koirala is making it a case of women’s dignity verses vulgarity.

Any one who is familiar with the art of film making knows that body doubles are an established practice in the trade. In most stunts scenes, it’s the body double which performs the dare devil acts and the hero or heroine’s face is shown to match the sequences.

Similarly, in the scenes which have gender sensitivity; female doubles are used as the main character may not be comfortable in those scenes. There is always a clear understanding between the actress and the director as to which scenes would be performed by a body double and which scenes would be done by the actress.

In the recent past, two movies, Shekhar Kapoor’s “Bandit Queen” and Deepa Mehta’s “Fire” made use of body doubles. In “Bandit Queen”, a body double is used for the nude scene where, the character of Phoolan Devi is asked to fetch water by upper caste hoodlums who earlier had raped her. Actress Seema Biswas who won the national award for the movie agreed to the use of a body double and the movie was screened all over India without any fuss.

In “Fire” the lesbian tendencies of a joint family woman were portrayed by actress Nandita Das and Shabana Aazmi. Both Das and Aazmi agreed to the use of body doubles for picturising the sensitive scenes. The movie was released as scheduled till the Shiv Sena stepped in as the cultural police and resorted to vandalism in some theaters.

In fact the kind of scenes to which Ms Koirala is referring has resonance in past Hindi movies as well. In Raj Kapoor’s “Mera Naam Joker”, adolescent Rishi Kapoor was depicted as being infatuated with his school teacher Simi Garewal. The adolescent is shown as having a peek at the body of his teacher who is bathing in a rivulet. Even though those scenes were considered vulgar by many, the movie attracted wide public appreciation.

The movie “Ek Choti Si Love Story” is on similar lines. According to reports there had been an agreement between the actress and the director to the use of a body double. Koirala precisely knew what scenes she was going to handle and what scenes were going to be juxtaposed with her face and someone else’s body. Now the actress is having problems with those scenes while the director says they are an essential part of the movie. The question is who is going to decide who is right and who is wrong.

When the movie was set for release on September 6, Koirala adopted a three pronged strategy to stop its release. She moved the high court which over ruled the lower courts judgment and gave an injunction to its release; Koirala approached IB Minister Sushma Swaraj, who promised to look into the matter; and finally she approached the Shiv Sena Supremo to ask for his intervention in the matter. Following which, Shiv Saniks swooped at the theaters in Mumbai and other places to stop the screening of the movie.

The first two courses of action adopted by Koirala seem legitimate, but asking Bal Thackeray to intervene in the issue has raised many eyebrows. It is the same Bal Thackeray who had asked for a ban on all of Manisha Koirala’s movies, when anti-Indian riots broke out in Kathmandu following Hrithik Roshan’s alleged anti Nepalese remarks. In spite of that Koirala, donning a long red Tika on her forehead, as if an avtar of goddess Durga, was seen entering the residence of the Shiv Sena Chief, seeking justice.

The issue is not the debate on morality verses vulgarity, perhaps it is as old as those between the chicken verses egg, but the issue is asking the Shiv Sena chief to act as a supra constitutional authority and act as an adjudicator. We have seen in the recent past how the Shiv Saniks have become extremely active given the slightest opportunity to act as cultural policemen in this country. Their mental wave length is no higher than those of Talibans whose conservatism had once choked the Afghan society.

Manisha Koirala by raking up this controversy has given such forces a room to enforce their dictates. Perhaps she is not aware of what results it will have on the cultural freedom of this country. It definitely does not auger well for the cultural glasnosts of the country.

People might have forgotten “Ek Choti Si Love Story” as they did “Bandit Queen” and “Fire”, but for Manisha making fuss about it. The controversy still has to play itself out…