Inspirations, Adaptations, Remakes and Remixes are all different forms of reproducing art, but often in the commercial world, they doesn’t bear a clear line of distinction from the otherwise derogatory term called “Copying”. And many a times, it becomes cheaper, illegal, unethical and contradictory towards all artistic sensibilities when such things are done without copyrights, consent and/or proper acknowledgement of the original. In the context of music, plagiarism, like piracy, not only causes economic loss for the original artists and producers, but at the same time, they are an intrusion to someone else’s intellectual property.
Once, Bappi Lahiri made headlines by suing American producers for plagiarizing his ‘Kaliyon ka chaman’ in their song ‘Addictive' by Truth Hurts. And now, it’s Anu Malik again. On the recent drama of Anu Malik accusing Pritam for lifting his tune, I took a dig at both of them… and this is what it looks:
Anu Malik
It sounds surprisingly funny when accusation comes from someone called Anu Malik who is by the way, now more known for judging reality shows where he tries to make a fool of himself with his instant idiotic shaayris. The old hindi saying aptly fits here – “Ulta chor kotwal ko daate”. Anu Malik accused composer Pritam for lifting his tune in the Salman starrer ‘Ready’ (2011). According to him, the song ‘Charcter dheela hai’ is a copy of his song ‘Mohabbat naam hai iska’ from the film ‘Ajnabi’ (2001). Though once, he was the most sought after music director of 90’s, but now perhaps he has nothing more left than to remind people of his previously forgotten tracks. Still, if one looks back, he will definitely loose count of his own infamous Choris. From Qawalis to Spanish pops, he had a diverse source of “inspirations” - both from inside and outside of the country. He shamelessly took Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s ‘Mera Piya Ghar Aaya’ and put it up in ‘Yaarana’ (1995), which was of course, superbly spiced up by Madhuri Dixit thoomkaas. Around the same time, came the film ‘Akele Hum Akele Tum’ (1995), and most of its songs were far from original. Ironically, the film itself portrayed composers who steal music from the protagonist. The now “virtually non-existent singer” Kumar Sanu number ‘Dil Mera Churaya Kyun’ in that movie is a straight lift from ‘Last Christmas’ by British pop duo Wham! (one of the duo is George Michael) from their album ‘Music from the Edge of heaven’ (1984). In some way, ‘Aye mere humsafar’ from ‘Baazigar’ (1993) was a good work but still you cannot hide the fact that its mukhda clearly resembles ‘Khubsurat Hasina’ from the old movie ‘Mr. X in Bombay’ (1964). The original song was sung beautifully by Kishore Kumar and composed by Laxmikant-Pyarelal. Most of his other “inspirations” came from the west, where he often couldn’t resist the temptations of lifting from the western catchy tunes and beats. He took the identical beat from Michael Jackson’s ‘They don’t care about us’ (1996) and used it in the masala number ‘Neela dupatta peela suit’ from ‘Hameshaa’ (1997). He used Spanish Los Del Rio’s global chartbuster Macarena twice in the same year in ‘Auzaar & Dhaal’ (1997). The film Duplicate (1998) had songs like ‘Ek shararat hone ko hai’, where Anu Malik copied a catchy tune from Laura Allens ‘Slip And Slide’. And its ‘Ladna Jhagadna’ is a copy of a children song called ‘A-Tisket A-Tasket’. You can see, quite literally, he has justified the name of that movie by his "sincere" musical efforts. In ‘Kareeb’ (1998), there is a song ‘Tera gussa’, and believe it or not, it’s a plain copy of the ‘Happy Birthday Song’. Seems, he sometimes even ran out of the “inspirations”. His works in movies like ‘Murder’ (2004) and ‘Zeher’ (2005) are basically not more than just a compilation of copies. In Murder, ‘Kaho na kaho’ is an adaptation of the Arabian song ‘Tamalli maak’ and has been acknowledged in the track itself. But surprisingly, it’s not the same treatment with the ‘O Jana’ number, which is also a note-by note copy of ‘Firiye dao’ from a popular Bangladeshi rock band called Miles. In fact, in a case hearing, the Calcutta High Court has ordered Bhatts to put off the track from the movie. Also, the superb ‘Bhheegey honth tere’ was again a total copy (including its lyrical parts) of a Punjabi track ‘Menu tere naal’ by a Pakistani singer named Najam Sheraz. So as you can see, Anu Malik has clearly left his foot-prints in the already stained saga of plagiarized music in Bollywood. However saying all that, I still feel that it would be unfortunate if he won’t be remembered for his rather good works in ‘Refugee’ and ‘Phir Teri Kahaani Yaad Aaayi’. Oops, wait a minute, I just realized that the ‘Tere dar par sanam’ prelude is also a copy of the theme track from 1971 film ‘Summer of 42’ composed by Michel Legrand.
Pritam Chakraborty
True, we couldn’t stop our laugh when Anu malik accused Pritam. But again Pritam too is neither a “washed-basil-leaf”, since this whole game of lifting tunes in Bollywood is not less than a vicious circle of some repeated players. So let us concentrate now on the composer who stepped in bollywood with a Dhoom. Soon after the success of ‘Dhoom’ (2004), a hardly remembered singer-composer lyricist called Sanjay Raina resurfaced and claimed that he lifted the tune and catchword ‘Shikdum’ from one of his album ‘Hungama’ released way back in 1996 by Magnasound. Pritam defended, saying that he was actually inspired by the Turkish song ‘Sikidim’ (actually it’s Simarik) by the group called Tarkan. So it seems that he wanted us to imply that it’s always okay to take “inspirations” from outside. Now moving on to his more direct intrusions, of which the first is the hugely successful ‘Gangster’ (2006). In that movie, the producers purchased rights from Gautam Chatterjee for the ‘Beegi bheei’ number. What a nice gesture and act of decency, but hold on. The movie also has a track ‘Ya Ali’ with which Zubeen Garg–a talented singer from northeast rose to fame. The song was a straight rip-off of an Arabian song called ‘Ya Ghali’ by a Kuwait based band named Guitara. Incidentally, the music company which owns rights of the Arabian number is owned by Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal from Saudi royal family. As usual, Pritam characteristically denied all the allegations and said he was inspired by a Muslim folk song instead. Other hits of that same album are also direct lifts, such as ‘Tu hi meri shab hai’ (from ‘Sacral Nirvana’ by Oliver Shanti & Friends) and ‘Lamha Lamha’ (from Waris Baig’s ‘Kal Shab Dekha Maine’). Then there is ‘Life in a Metro’ (2007) of which the song ‘Baatein kuch ankahe si’, which has got several versions in the same album, is a copy of a Korean song ‘Ah reum dah oon sa ram’ originally sung by Seo Yoo Seok in the 70’s. The same is the case with ‘Pehli nazar mein’ from ‘Race’ (2008). The song in the soulful voice of Pakistani sensation Atif Aslam is a “pure” copy of another Korean song ‘Sarang hae yo’ from the hit Korean tele series, ‘Kwae-geol Chun-hyang’ (2005). And, remember KK’s ‘Kya mujhe pyar hai’ from Who Lamhe' (2006)? Yes, again, it’s a copy of an Indonesian song ‘Tak bisakah' by the popular Indonesian band ‘Peterpan’ (it was a part of the soundtrack for a 2005 Indonesian film ‘Alexandria’). The other favorite - 'Chal Chale’, sung brilliantly by James with his usual sleepy touch, is a copy of a 1965 track, 'A World of our own’ by the band named, 'The Seekers'. So you see, like many, both temptations and success is keeping Pritam’s motivation going… and we can expect that it will continue to go as it is.
Indian Film Music Industry: A Chronicle of Plagiarism
The Indian film music is perhaps one of the biggest entertainment industries after the Indian film industry itself. And the distinctive identity of Bollywood has been substantially maintained by its colorful music, since generations after generations. Though, plagiaristic practices in Indian film music are as old as the industry itself, but the early 40’s to 60’s were generally seen as largely clean period with strong classical, folk and regional influences. Occasionally, there have been western influences, especially in some of the works of O.P Nayyar, Shankar-Jaikishan, Usha Khanna and S.D. Burman. But one wouldn’t deny that those influences or adaptations were actually aesthetically incorporated, enhanced and aptly Indianized versions of the originals. And that creditably paved the way for the beginning of further developments and popularity of Indian film music. But the 70’s and 80’s were the times when trends really started changing. Even though legends like R D Burman maintained originality in most of his work, but he too occasionally took inspirations from different sources including Rabindrasangeet. However, it was the later new breed of music directors like Rajesh Roshan and Bappi Lahiri who took this trend to another level by mastering the art of plagiarism. They made, borrowed and stole heavily, by directly copying western music from different genres like Pop, Latin, Hip-hop, Disco, Country etc. The trend was further carried forward in 90’s by the likes of Nadeem-Shravan, Dilip Sen-Sameer Sen, Jatin-Lalit, Anand-Milind, Sandip Chowta and of course, Anu Malik. Some of the composers even shamelessly copied A.R. Rehman, who at that time infused fresh blood in the industry. The other distinctive change was that the “influences” were not just limited to West but also had already embraced the Middleast and Pakistan for their immensely rich musical resources. And today, in the new millennium, with the rise of talents like Pritam Chakraborty, the “music expeditions” has even reached to the earlier untouched territories of Southeast-Asian countries like Korea, Malaysia and Indonesia. A truly global robbery!!
