New Delhi, Sept. 28 -- In my screenplay for a TV series, I want my character to hold a conspiracy theory that Zeenat Aman and Parveen Babi are the same person. This is a riff on the findings of my lifelong survey that 50% of Indians cannot tell the difference between the two film stars, especially from still photographs.

But I know that the lawyers of any Indian production house would raise a red flag. They would say I cannot even mention the names of those two stars without their permission. They would be wrong, but that doesn't matter. A writer's legal argument is no match for a lawyer's 'red flag.'

My riff would be considered legally risky because those who represent the actors may claim that I was trying to exploit the actors' stard...