Humor - Copy me Kaavya

By Gaurav Parab

A huge debate has been kicked up regarding the Kaavya- Opal- Mehta-Very-Long- Book whose-name-I-cannot- remember case. As someone who has done his bit of writing on bathroom walls, I would like to say my bit.

As a fellow writer to another, Kaavya, what you did was wrong. In my words, Shame on you Kaavya. In your words, Shame on you Kaavya.

Plagiarism is a crime. Especially, when you get caught at it like you did. If you had only spent some more time and copied less known writers like me, you would have made all that money dear. But you didn’t.

In all your teenage wisdom, you thought copying someone off the bookshelf, whose work was read by thousands, would be easier than copying some one whose work was read by millions? You thought it would be simpler to go to a bookstore, get your inspiration than say… fly down to India, go to Bombay VT station- Platform 3 – Bathroom 4?

If a writer copies ideas and passages, and gets caught while doing it, she does not deserve to be published. How can someone who made such elementary mistakes while copying silly passages expect $500,000?

If I was getting $ 1000 to write a passage, I would make sure that I copy it so well that no one knows that it has been done. Not even me. It also makes your denials sound more genuine. Sure, you can say that you were inspired and all, but that does not go down too well with a race which basically copies everything from each other. Including writings on the bathroom wall (The guy who did Bathroom 3 may pretend otherwise, but we both know who wrote first)

Kaavya, if you were only as smart as my friend Shailendar, you would have made all the millions that Shailender has not made. He is not a writer, but he is a speaker. In many senses, he has the two qualities that all good writers have.

1. An IT job that doesn’t pay well 2. A Boss who is paid well.

As I said, Shailender is not a writer-cheater. He is more of a speaker-repeater. Very broadly speaking, speaker-repeaters are of four types and the Great Wall of China is very wide.

The first type is what I call the ‘exclusive repeaters’. These chaps are very choosy about the person they repeat. An exclusive repeater will choose to repeat only one particular chap. If the chap is called Peter, and Peter says “That’s right’. Then our repeater fellow will promptly add, “That’s right”.

The second type is more broad-minded and less snobbish than their exclusive brothers. They would never discriminate against their fellow man, and they choose to repeat what every one says.
If Tom say’s, “That’s’ right Peter”.
The repeater will say, “That’s right Peter.”
If Dick says, “Hey Harry, why do you keep on repeating everything I say?”
The repeater will say, “Hey Dick, why do you keep on repeating everything I say”.

The third is the absolute repeater. (If the person who did Bathroom 3, is reading, you know who I am talking about.)

If a chap says, “To get that complete account, have a chat with Ramu.” Then the absolute repeater will say – “To get that complete account, have a chat with Ramu.”

The last type is the partial repeater. He just nods, adds a few words of his own and tries to pass on the concept as his own baby.

Peter might say, “To get that complete account, have a chat with Ramu.”
The partial repeater will say, “To get that complete account and nothing but the complete account, have a chat with Ramu.”

Shailendar is a little bit of both type one and type four. That is why he is never caught. He sticks to one inspirational source, and he does a good job at repeating. Shailender believes that if you have nothing to say, why keep quiet? Just say what the other person is saying, just say it differently enough. If the other person happens to be a girl, then she will fall for you like a ton of dust. Not that you would be interested. But since my audience is primarily Men (Blame it on the medium I write on), I use the Girl example. Girls, if Shailender’s record can be used as an indicator, just can’t resist these repeaters. They would give an arm to have one nearby and with pros like Shailender; they don’t have to look far and wide to get a personalized repeater of their own.

So what I suggest Kaavya, is you start copying my work only. In fact, if you were visiting China soon, do make it a point to go to the Great Wall. It made for a nice canvas for me.