Cheeni Kum director Balakrishnan (Balki) has been criticised in at least two major articles on Sunday the for naming his 7-year old protagonist 'Sexy'. As well as the very unique, precocious and sassy friendship she and Amitabh Bachchan share coming under fire.

However,Balki is not bothered. "Who are these people and what do they find so objectionable in a little girl being called Sexy? It's like any little girl dressing up in her mother's sari and lipstick posing before a mirror and trying to be 'sexy' without knowing what the word means. Why such a hue and cry over an innocent name?"

Even the child actor Swini Khara's father has been quoted as saying that their daughter could not have been give a better name than 'Sexy'.

Balki laughs, "He didn't seem to mind when we shot the film. I don't know why anyone should object when the censorboard had no objections. Cheeni Kum has family audiences coming in droves. I don't know of any parent or child feeling uncomfortable with Swini's being named 'Sexy'.

Though some sociologist on one of the articles is quoted as saying it's dangerous I don't see anyone getting anxious because Mr Bachchan calls the kind Sexy. Dirty or clean, it's all in the viewers' minds. Really, I'm stuck speechless after this unnecessary controversy."

After a pause he adds, "If we filmmakers are muzzled and muffled for a harmless name given to a child with no ulterior motives, then we might as well go back to the times when the hero was named Rama and the villain Ravan. And if the heroine had twins they had to be Luv and Kush."

However, one has to ask if it is right to give such an adult label to an innocent child? Perhaps this projects the wrong image, one we should not want put onto a child?