"Why are responsible mainstream magazines resorting to cheap, baseless and slanderous gossip... just to enhance sales?"

Aishwarya Rai has had a tough day. She has just finished dubbing the whole day and is expected to fly off to Los Angeles the same night. But there's no strain on her face.

Dressed in blue jeans and a cream top with a jacket, her hair plays impish pranks around her dancing eyes. She looks like an agitated college girl who is discovering the treacheries of life. A new issue of a political magazine states that Anil Ambani has developed more than a passing interest in the ravishing Rai and that marriage plans have been discussed.

Sitting with her legs curled up, Rai doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. She opts for the former.

A very close friend says, "Ash hardly knows Anil Ambani! What are they talking about? They've met a couple of times socially and now they're supposed to be marrying? Puhleeze!

"Just because she doesn't retaliate or keep issuing clarifications, mediapersons think they can get away with any and every thing? Well, sorry, I don't buy that.

The thought of marrying Mr Anil Ambani is as alien to Ash as migrating to the moon. And they have the gall to even drag in "a film star and SP supporter" who supposedly came to her parents with a marriage proposal from Mr Ambani. Hello?

"I thought only gossip magazines wrote such baseless rubbish to sell copies. Twelve years ago, Ash had dragged a magazine to court for saying she had something to do with Akshay Kumar and that they had created a scene by a poolside. It turned out to be a case of mistaken identity. The wheel seems to have turned a full circle."

The friend pauses for breath and Aishwarya takes over. "Damage to a celebrity's image is so irrevocable. The other day, a morning paper wrote that I was keeping mum about my international projects because it suited me to do so.

They even wrote that I choose to keep mum over a Buddha project where my name was splashed around.

But please tell me when did I ever say I was going to be in a Buddha project? Some announcement is made far away in Bodh Gaya where my name is mentioned for a project about which I've no idea.

How am I supposed to monitor everything that's announced about my career without my knowledge? No, I never said I'm doing a James Bond film, or a film with Chris Tucker of Buddha. Why pull me up for not issuing clarifications all day long?

Aishwarya also refutes a report that she walked out of a screening of Raincoat at the Bangladesh film festival. "I haven't ever been to Bangladesh in my life!

So where's the question of walking out? Besides, I was in Agra when I was supposed to have walked out in Bangladesh. Maybe I was getting married to Mr Ambani under the moonlit Taj Mahal," she laughs.

For the record , the man in Aishwarya's life isn't an Ambani but an Oberoi.