The iconic Bollywood Industry is not always hailed for its originality, whether it was their unapologetic attempt at being “inspired” by Christopher Nolan’s Memento or their “God Tussi Great Ho” in which the producers were even able to cast an actor as seasoned as Morgan Freeman from “Bruce Almighty”, Amitabh Bachchan. The list transcends the film industry and moves on to the music video scene, Dhoom Machale from Dhoom (2004), for example was taken from Mario Takes a Walk by Jesse Cook (1996)
We could spend this entire post cataloguing each instance of blatant plagiarism (read:inspiration), but it has seemed as if our friends from across the border are always inspired from cultures and melodies foreign to them, be it Dil Na Diya
from Krrish (2006) taking cues from a Turkish Military March Track or borrowing the melody to Gela Gela, Aitraaz from R. Kelly himself.
Despite their history, who would have thought that our Indian counterparts would be “inspired” from us and what our dismal industry has to offer to their thriving centre of originality. Nevertheless, we proved worthy and the latest attempt does not even bother to change the title or the chorus of the song it’s blatantly copying. The Film “Mubarakan” features the song “Hawa Hawa”, inspired from Hassan Jahangir’s song of the same name.
This is not to suggest that we’ve never been “inspired” from their cultural offerings, in fact we were creative enough to adapt item song “Jalebi Bai” into our fold of religious zeal a few weeks ago with our own take on the tune and melody.
Perhaps the greatest irony in blaming them of plagiarizing our song is forgetting that it was in fact, a much older song that inspired our country favourite. Kourosh Yaghmaei’s , Havar Havar
Leg pulling aside, it seems that we nations are equally matched in attempts at “inspiration”, perhaps one more graceful in the act than the other.
