Plagiarism, the out right act of stealing others’ ideas in writing without giving due credit, has stunned reading and writing communities across the world with an Indian –American Journaist and author Fareed Rafiq Zakaria’s confession.Time and CNN, the media organizations he was working for, placed him under suspension and made him tender an unconditional apology for the very act of lifting passages from the writings of a prominent author. This incident has made every community to look for ‘thieves’ in its literary groups.
Among Telugu authors, Yandamoori Veerendranath , a popular novelist, stood as forerunner in plagiarism. Among many of his ‘literary thefts’ , the most dare-devilish one is ‘Abhilasha’. A post revealing this is in Face Book’s circulation now. He deliberately copied the story with all its turns and twists form the film Fritz Lang’s film ‘Beyond a Reasonable Doubt’ written by Douglas Morrow(in 1956) and published it in Telugu as his own with the tittle,’Abhilasha’. This was later adapted into a film with the same name in 1983.
Here is the story line: A novelist aided by his future father-in-law conspires to frame himself in the murder of a stripper as part of an effort to ban capital punishment. Yandamuri has never confessed for his continuous and untiring unethical practices.
If the makers of the original script(Beyond a Reasonable Doubt) sues him, how much does he need to pay? Guess.
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