ADULTS ONLY: One of the four scenes in the film Koirala is objecting to

She lives alone in Versova. She smokes occasionally, but no particular brand. She likes her drink. And she dumped her last boyfriend, Crispin Conroy, Australian ambassador to Nepal, because he "was in a hurry to marry". What's more, she doesn't mind talking about any of it. Manisha Koirala is no hand-wringing, wilting wallflower. At 32, she's one of the few women in Mumbai's glamorous fishbowl who prides herself on having another life. "Thank God for actors like Preity Zinta and Sushmita Sen who also believe in living an open life. When I began in the industry, it was very different,'' she says.

Yet, with Ek Chhotisi Love Story, Koirala has moved from being Bollywood's most bindaas babe to Aunty No. 1. The niece of the left-leaning former prime minister of Nepal G.P. Koirala felt no qualms in rushing to Bollywood's Big Nanny, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray, to stop the screening of the film directed by K. Shashilal Nair. Her objection: four shots of a body double, including one where her legs flail in the air with her boyfriend (played by the hapless Ranvir Shorey) on top of her. Koirala got a stay from the Bombay High Court till October 5 and asked Thackeray to call up Information and Broadcasting Minister Sushma Swaraj to review the release of the film.

"It's my prerogative as a woman and an actress to see how my body is displayed." Manisha Koirala, actor

Considering Koirala spent most of the two-hour film looking like a Teletubby in a tiny top and tinier shorts, her argument of indecent exposure seems difficult to accept. But Koirala bristles, "It's my prerogative as a woman and an actress to see how my body is displayed. I believe in progressive cinema. I want to experiment but I don't want to be exploited.''

Subhash Ghai, who cast a then fresh-from-Delhi Koirala (she studied in the capital's Army Public School) in Saudagar in 1991, regards her as a very sensitive person. "Nisha's also very temperamental. This is purely an ego clash," he says.

Sanjay Nirupam, Shiv Sena MP, who jumped out of the woodwork to save his friend Koirala, doesn't think so. "It's a question of every working woman's dignity,'' he says, justifying the burning of posters in Mumbai as a Gandhian act. That is the spin Koirala, who has lately found an alternative career as a UNICEF goodwill ambassador, is trying to put to her very public outrage.

In fact, Koirala is very serious about her non-bimbette image, even though the only book she can recall is Tehmina Durrani's sex and slurp saga My Feudal Lord. But more than that, she says she's working on her craft, watching movies like Giuseppe Tornatore's Malena and Tom Tykwer's Run, Lola Run. "I plan to go to the US to do a four-week course in filmmaking. I definitely want to direct by next year."

She is already preparing for life after acting with a production company called Moving Images, which is producing Paisa Vasool, starring her and Sushmita Sen, and an as-yet-untitled film starring her Doon School-educated brother Siddharth. And yes, she's got a new boyfriend, English businessman Cecil Anthony Mike ("Yes, Mike," she giggles. "That's his surname.")

Could this wrangling with a producer be the kiss of death for Koirala's career? Says Nair, her friend-turned-bete noire: "She doesn't have much of a career left in the industry. She begged to be in this film. It was her last resort." Any surprise that Koirala doesn't agree?

-Kaveree Bamzai