Nakal Mein Akal: Getting ‘Inspired’ Is An Old Bollywood Tale

By now almost everyone would be aware of the name Fareed Zakaria and the recent row involving the man. If not then let us do a small rewind for you. Fareed Zakaria, is an Indian-American journalist. He was the editor at Time magazine, as well as hosted a show at CNN. He was recently at the receiving end of a lot of flak when his work came under scrutiny, following charges of plagiarism. Here is an interesting article from Firstpost.com writer Vivek Kaul, who talks about how Fareed Zakaria is drawing so much attention from all sides, for his plagiarizing acts, but how our own Indian film industry, walks scott-free. Vivek Kaul uses Bollywood blockbuster, Sholay, to express his point of view.

Fareed Zakaria himself admitted to have borrowed portions from New York magazine's columnist Jill Lepore work, for his own column, where he talked about gun control in America. On the other hand, Bollywood is one of the biggest film industries of the world, and plagiarizing has been a part-and-parcel of its working, passing by everyday in the name of 'inspiration. Writers Salim-Javed's best Bollywood work, Sholay, is seen as the most 'inspired', western curry flick ever.

Fareed Zakaria

Vivek Kaul makes an interesting point, that giving any attribution for heavily borrowed....err inspired work has never ever been a norm in Bollywood, saying that, "Fareed Zakaria, unlike Salim-Javed, is unlucky to be living in an era where copying something, and passing it off as your own creation, is getting more and more difficult. Zakaria is just finding that out."

The writer further writes, "When Salim-Javed did Sholay, the times were different. People were not as much aware as they are today and it was easy to pass off someone else’s work as your own. In fact, the writer duo even went to the extent of creating a background for how they had been inspired in writing the “Veeru ki Shaadi” proposal scene. They got away with it. Zakaria clearly didn’t."

Though Vivek Kaul has just used one Bollywood film, Sholay, as an example to explain his point. But we are all too well-aware that Bollywood is bent too heavily under the burden of 'borrowing'. Whether it is film stories, dialogues, lyrics, music or any other aspect, we don't shy away from getting 'inspired' ever. But at least, our Indian film industry people are smart enough to know how to and from where to get 'inspired'. Maybe Fareed Zakaria forgot the fact that the he was actually lifting verses from one the most widely read magazines. Not an intelligent choice, we would say Mr. Zakaria.

What more perplexes many is that why a renowned and respectable journalist such as Fareed Zakaria did get involved into plagiarizing? Zakaraia, became a columnist with the Newsweek magazine in 2000 and then became the editor of Newsweek International. In 2010, he was honored by the prestigious Padma Bhushan Award, by Indian Government, for his contribution in the field of journalism. Zakaria was even hosting his own show, Fareed Zakaria GPS, on CNN, since 2008. What made the man who had accomplished so much, to risk it all?

Being a respectable journalist, with such a long standing career, saying that Zakaria never had any personal point-of-view or any personal understanding of news, would be redundant. And of course, Zakaria, would know how stringent the present age copyright laws are. Furthermore, the technology of discovering plagiarism in work is quite easily accessible. Even a Goggle search can help one in finding out whether an article is lifted or not. But the question still remains, why did Fareed Zakaria do it? In a statement Zakaria said, "Media reporters have pointed out that paragraphs in my Time column on gun control, which was also a topic of conversation on this blog, bear close similarities to paragraphs in Jill Lepore's essay in the April 23rd issue of The New Yorker. They are right. I made a terrible mistake."

Doesn't quite make sense Mr. Zakaria, does it? Well just to end with an old Hindi line, ‘Nakal mein bhi akal ki zaruraat hoti hai.’

(This article was first published on www.popcracker.com. To read more interesting articles on pop-culture visit www.popcracker.com)

Stupid Guy Goes To India: A true story that provides an Interesting read.

Stupid Guy Goes To India (SGGTI), by Yukichi is a funny and interesting story of a Japanese Manga writer and artist coming to India believing that he can make japanese Manga a rage in the heart of india.

Now what is the interesting part in the story:

A. It is a true story of Yukichi

B. It is simply hilarious as an idea that someone who doesn't know either Hindi or English coming all the way from Japan to Delhi.
C. He making every possible effort to not just start his own hindi version of Japanese Manga comics, but also adjusting to the country's lifestyle, work culture and even making friends.

The SGGTI is the english translation of Yukichi Yamamatsu's Japanese Manga Comic, published by Blaft Publication, and translated by Kumar Sivasubramanian. It is Yukichi's tale of desire, demands and struggles in India, where he came with the hope of publishing India's first Hindi Manga comic. What I like the best that, even despite the difference in style for those who are not used to a Manga, it is quite simple in terms of content and writing. It is a simple story, nothing pseudo or a sob story or something that would make you pity either Yukichi or Indians, due to their inherent nature. It makes you symapthetic towards Yukichi's efforts on understanding a different culture by still keeping his hopes of publishing a Japanese Manga in Hindi alive and striving.

The writing is pretty simple, nothing that would make you go in overtly thinking mode or a sob story. It presents a story as simply as someone narrating it, which exactly what it is, Yukichi narrating his story through words and images.

I'm in particularly love with Yukichi from SGGTI, he is a middle aged old man who has come to a totally different country with the aim of making them, of what he feels is non-existent, Manga culture of Japan. He doesn't know either Hindi or English, two most basic languages of communation in India. He is persistent, he is difficult, he is quick to learn and he learns quick the art of bargaining. Yukichi vents out his anger at the behavior of Indian work culture that causes delay in his project coming out but he is still never down in hopes. He is quick to adapt and adopt, he is creative and strong, he is old yet willful.

It is really interesting to see Yukichi's struggles with Indian people and Indian language. What I like is the fact that Yukichi's narrative never looses its coherent thread of being a story simply from Yukichi's point of view. It is funny, straight-forward, clean, easy to understand, and nothing like 'reading-between-the-lines' sort.

There are some bits that I personally didn't like too much, one was the in-detailed description of his bowel movement and secondary the description of him not being able to achieve sexual satisfaction, despite having paid for it and haggling for it for a long time.

Overall, the Narrative never for a second tries to be omnipresent in the story, it doesn't make any effort to bring forth the point of view of the exact words of the people with whom Yukchi interacts. It holds you, involves you and its simplicity will make you laugh. It actually brings you in Yukichi's shoes and even though at times you are laughing at him and his persistence on certain things, you will still be able to say 'well that must have been hard for him'.

Now if it would have been a Film review I would have mentioned a lot of other aspects, such as acting, cinematography, music , etc. But since this is my first book review I'm not quite sure what else to talk about. All I would say it is a simple, interesting and well written book. The paneling and art-work is quite simple and there is nothing cluttering about it, that would hinder the story. If you pick it up you are sure going to have a few laughs on Yukichi's situations, but you will also sympathize with him. It is a good enjoyable read, and easy to get over with quickly, so you wont be able to put it down till you get to the last page and get to know what happens with Yukichi Yamamatsu in the end.....Is he successful in introducing the first hindi translated Japanese Manga in India, is he able to cope up with the people of Delhi and the work culture here, and is he able to over come the most basic barrier of communication i.e. language.

Stupid Guy Goes To India

Author: Yukichi Yamamatsu

Translated by Kumar Sivasubramanian

Published by Blaft Publications