Comedy of Melody

Thanks to the largesse of my US based client I had this unrestricted access to yet another cool app from Google … the “You Tube”. And as I was clicking randomly through the video uploaded by numerously infinite Netizens who have chosen to broadcast them… I ended up clicking on the link which was childishly named Peterpan-Tak Bisakah. As my curiosity spiraled, I found myself already clicking the link. The video took no time to stream in, once again thanks to the bandwidth that my esteemed organization provides me with, though not for the purpose I am using it for now ;).

As the video started rolling, the crooning by the slit-eyed lead vocalist didn’t hit me as much thanks to the language that was entirely foreign to me; what was familiar was the soundtrack that the guitarist and the drummer were weaving. As the prelude and later the track pleasantly started hitting my ear drums; I realized this isn’t entirely alien but I was equally sure that this was my first hit to this video. The wheels in my brain started rolling; the grey cells began churning trying to wonder whether I was the member of the group in my earlier incarnation, but Alas! It wasn’t to be.

Just then my memory cells pinged, and I realized the music was sounding very similar to a track “Kya Muzhe Pyaar Hai” from a recent Hindi movie “Woh Lamhe”. Wait! did do I say ‘similar’? It was indeed ditto. In a flash, I knew it was a perfect copy-paste work by some music composer from Bollywood. Though some patriotic feelings did ooze out in me, which hinted at the Hindi track being the original and the guys from the east might have picked it up; but my mind wasn’t ready to comply with my heart. So I set out to clear my doubts, though logically I didn’t have any doubts as to which version was the elder amongst the two.

Few queries in Google and a couple of wiki pages confirmed the assumption I had made. It was an original track by some band called “Peterpan” from Indonesia. As the case of plagiarism of established, my mind had made another assumption as to who the Bollywood composer could be. So, as I Googled once more. This time I was shocked (I wonder pleasantly shocked or otherwise) to see my assumption was way off the mark. Like me you might have guessed it to be the one and only ‘Anu Mallik’ but it wasn’t to be… It was a comparatively a new kid on the block… Pritam.

I was compelled to hit the Google/you tube one more time. This time the search was on ‘Pritam Copy cat acts’. As it dawned to me the search results stretched beyond a single page. In fact all his major hits were picked up or ‘inspired’ (as they choose to describe their act) from somewhere or the other, majority from Asia. “Plagiarism at its best!”, I sighed.

I remember once Mr. Anu Mallik, the original copy master had famously said and I quote “Even copying is an art”. After four years of engineering and infinite number of backs I should agree with him and I do. Its quiet an art to sew words for a totally different dialect onto the original piece of music. I acknowledge that it’s not anyone’s cup of tea to liven up the string of word with some melodious music. But having said that, I strongly feel against blatant plagiarism and claiming someone else’s work as one’s own. Copying by itself is not as big an offense as doing it without giving credit to the original artists themselves is. In today’s world where all content produced is distributed to the most remote part of the globe, one can’t escape being caught red-handed. More so, it even hampers the original work of art by these masters of Ctrl+C Ctrl+V. The master of copying Anu Mallik, who had even gone a step forward with applying same tune to two different songs, did come out with some really melodious tunes in movies like Border and Refugee. But general mindset is such that public tend to remember the wrong doings more than rest of the things.

The business of copying can be seen through a noble angle too. Look it in a way of offering tribute to the original artists or spreading his work to even a larger set of audience. But this could be done, when one gracefully accepts the source of the work. In such a way, one could achieve fame and skip being called a plagiarist too.