I know it when I see it

Well extremely sorry for not writing for past week or so, I just got busy. With that being said, I remember my Nanaji (Maternal Grand Father) as he always used to say people who would complain about being busy was that "Even if you guys have more than 24 hours in a day, you will still be busy"

So, Point is that Being Busy is just my lame excuse, I may be just lazy to not write down,

But enough of that, I stopped on Pancham and will continue with him today. Pancham was accused of Plagiarizing right through his career, He had to defend himself against it, and in most of the interviews he often clarified that inspiration was part of the game in any field of art and his rule was to use one line and recreate an entire song out of the same, and which you can see that most composers did.

So How do you differentiate between Inspiration and plagiarism? The answer most likely lies with every individual. Every creative individual will definitely know where inspiration ends and plagiarism starts. (It's a different story how openly they accept or deny it😏).

Spring of 2013, I was in Cleveland, Ohio working as a consultant for Safeguard Properties, I had a coworker, consultant as I was, Vicky Smith, was a profound advocate of the 1st amendment of the constitution, and our regular non-work-related talks were more or less related on that topic only. I was an avid listener 😊, She once told me about supreme court case of The State of Ohio vs Jacobellis way back in 1964 where Nico Jacobellis was convicted and fined $2500 by a judge of Court of Common Pleas (trial court) of Cuyahoga County for showing the French director Louise Malle film The Lovers French Original as Les Amants (1958) in theaters and subsequently banning the film by Ohio state. 

The court case or its judgment is not important for the topic which we are here for, but what is important was Associate Justice Potter Stewart’s statement on the case. He Said, “I cannot define the extent of Pornography but I know it when I see it”.  I know it when I see it since then has become a colloquial expression and holds true for Plagiarism. I guess it is for every individual they know it when they see it.

Coming back to Pancham now, there were songs which Pancham just created by taking a single piece from one song and creating the whole song, In my previous story A Hurrican in making, I talked about song Dekhta Huin Koi Ladkee Haseen which can be classified in this bucket. But why should we even talk about what we already talked?

Ram my nephew was born in Memphis back in 2010, Post Ram's birth I have seen Dadu(my brother) and Ritu(My Sister-in-law) playing a lot of nursery rhymes. It is not that I have not heard nursery rhymes before, but this was the time I have listened to them over and over on YouTube, Netflix for extended periods, there was Old McDonalds, 5 little monkeys, Mary had a little lamb, and bunch others. But the one which struck me was If you are Happy. The nursery rhyme had a rhythm on which I was visualizing Neetu Singh and Rishi Kapoor dancing around. And As soon as I start humming If you are Happy and you know, the next line will come dono mile is tarah. So Here is Pancham taking a Nursery Rhyme and making one of the most popular numbers in 70’s Ek Mein Aur Ek Tu penned by Gulshan Bawra from Movie Khel Khel Mein. The movie was made by Ravi Tandon, Father of Raveena Tandon Thadani who also made Amitabh Bachchan's Majboor (Aadmi Jo Kehta Hai by Laxmi-Pyare) and Khud-Daar. (Angrezi Mein Kahte Hai by Rajesh Roshan) Also, Khel Khel Mein was later became inspiration for Abbas-Mastan's directorial first Hit Khiladi. Khiladi was a musical thriller and music was given by Jatin-Lalit (who are immensely inspired by Pancham and brothers of Love Story - Vijeta Pandit, wife of Late Aadesh Srivastava and Hera Pheri- Sulakshna Pandit)

Ramesh Sippy, the maker of Sholay could not recreate the same magic again, I guess because of the high set of expectations. But His music director from Sholay kept on creating mesmerizing numbers in all of the movies which he created. Ramesh Sippy is also credited to bring back Dimple Kapadia into the mainstream, Dimple the Raj Kapoor's Bobby, after Bobby immediately married the then superstar and heartthrob Rajesh Khanna who at that time was 17 years elder to her. Anyways we are not talking about Rajesh Khanna or Dimple here, we are talking about Pancham and his music in Ramesh Sippy’s Saagar. What a soundtrack this movie had, each and every song was just amazing. Whether it was Saagar Jaise Aankhon wali or Yunhi Gaate Raho. But the song which I am talking about is Kamal Hassan and Dimple’s Song at the wedding reception of Maria and Johny. What a beautiful voice of SPB's in O Maria 

Back in Austin, My friend Brett and his wife Lucy were big-time Soft Rock Music fans, They had Soft Rock LP’s aging back from 1950’s and so on. One of the evenings they invited me over to their place to have dinner. (Meetu, my wife was in California, as Dadu and Ritu were expecting Sakhi, my niece). Brett knew I had a musical ear, so when I was there he played some Soft Rock music from 70’s. I had a glass of coke in my hand and I literally dropped it as soon as I heard the song from album Band on the Run (1974) from Paul McCartney and Wings, who was later granted Knighthood. The Song was Mamunia.

O Maria and Mamunia have the exact identical notes when they sing Mamunia Oh ho, or O Maria Oh ho. But then the O Maria Song was completed by Pancham, It was this line only in the song which was copied, but a completely new song was created.

So I will leave you to your thoughts on When I see it I know it and also on Pancham’s statement on picking a single line from a song and creating the completely different song.

Till then…