I feel like I’ve finally made it to the big leagues. India Today is a weekly news magazine published in India that has a circulation of over 1 million readers. In the newest issue, the editor-in-chief, Aroon Purie, writes a letter from the editor that sounds awfully familiar:
That’s just an excerpt, but those first two paragraphs might look awfully familiar to the sharp-eyed amongst you.
That’s right – Aroon Purie has lifted the opening paragraphs of the story I wrote about Rajinikanth for Slate. Not only that, but he has published, in a leading Indian weekly, the following sentence: “If a tiger had sex with a tornado and then their tiger-nado baby married an earthquake, their off-spring would be Rajinikanth.”
I think I deserve an award for getting the mating habits of the tiger-nado printed in India Today if for nothing else.
A friend of mine sent me news that this was starting to light up the Twitter-o-sphere in India, and a nice reporter who emailed me for comment was kind enough to forward me the scan from the magazine, that hit stands yesterday. As for my reaction? I’ve just emailed India Today offering my services. Instead of having to do all this tedious cutting and pasting themselves, I suggested that I could just write for them directly. I’ve promised them to charge a reasonable rate, and assured them that I will never steal copy from Mr. Purie and print it under my own name in revenge.
Let’s see what they say.
OMG! That’s terrible.. I loved your article about Rajinikanth.. Excellently written! I have no idea why some people took offense to that one.. Perhaps, they didn’t get what you were trying to say.. For me, that was the best testimonial about the star ever!
That’s awesome and terrible at the same time.
I really enjoyed your article!!! I haven’t exactly been a fan of Mr. Rajnikanth but your exuberant writing about him has really captured my interest. Sorry about the India Today fiasco though!!!
India Today Corporate Communications has posted an apology.
http://mumbaiboss.com/2010/10/14/india-today-issues-an-apology/
Idiot plagiarists. Sue the bastards. Even the apology has arrogance written all over it.
This is absurd. IT is a leading Indian magazine and it is hard to believe that they take credits for someone else’s write up. Hope they apologize with you for the same.
India Today has a reputation for screwing over writers and not only plagiarizing their words, but for not paying their dues to the freelancers who have written for them. That it is a national magazine with such standing is a shame and allows them to get away with this behavior.
Please do demand compensation and a printed apology. If not for yourself, then for the hundreds (thousands?) of freelancers India Today has and continues to screw over.
You wrote
George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic did the effects
FYI Industrial Light and Magic are not worked for this project.
Pl chk this link
http://www.animationxpress.com/index.php?file=story&id=31881
Oh Gosh!
Please sue them. These media barons are such goons, they deserve being sued over stuf like this. sheesh!
I was one of the many who shared the link to your Rajnikath article via Facebook. And though I’m not a Ranji fan, I loved the way you wrote. It was probably the first time I managed to read an entire article about the actor
Regards,
Rohini
Thanks for the correction about ILM. Several newspapers reported that they worked on the film, but I think you’re right that they didn’t. Sorry about that.
I’m a Canadian writer whose work was also plagiarized by India Today. It’s been eighteen months, and they’ve never acknowledged their actions or apologized to me.
Some might say it’s because I’m not as important as you or Slate, but they’re wrong. I always knew Canada needed nukes; you can’t have a decent international scandal without them.
http://niranjana.wordpress.com/2010/10/14/india-today-apologizes-but-not-to-me/
The funny thing is that they didn’t even bother to correct the bit about Rajini’s hailing from Tamil Nadu. Isn’t he a Maharashtrian from Karnataka working in Madras?
And what more do you expect from someone who is in it only for the money. The only consideration is the money. Not ethics. How else will you explain the fact that they own aaj-tak!!???
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You’re right that Rajinikanth was born in Bangalore but he currently lives and works in Tamil Nadu (he has other residences, but all the accounts I can find about him seem to agree that he spends most of his time in Tamil Nadu). So by saying he hails from there, I meant that that’s where he spends the majority of his time, and it’s the place he’s currently most associated with since it’s the home of the Tamil film industry. Sorry if that was misleading.
Great article Grady! There are some other dimensions of Rajinikanth which would probably require some open minded analysis to understand. For instance, I tried imagining a typical scene in a Government Office, for example lets take a Police Station. Lets say, people are queuing up in the administrative section to lodge certain queries and you see some random injustice happening inside with the head cop or the sergeant. This situation occurs in a totally different manner in the East (ex: India, rather South India, north india, east india, west india etc…) and the West. Of course, you would be knowing this already. But, what I am trying to say is that, you have common situations like these and directors need to present these situations in the most innovative way ever to grab the masses. So, from what I have observed, Rajinikanth would be the person who would be able to portray that particular scene in the most innovative way ever possible. Now, when analyzing why people like the styles (including me), it’s like this. Why do I like the scene in “Goodfellas” where Robert DeNiro slowly lights up a cigarette inside the bar when “Sunshine of your love” plays in the background? Why do I like each and every scene in “Godfather”? It is heroism and only some of them can bring it on the screen. The screen presence rests with Rajinikanth.
Many of them might disagree or might even talk about the looks and other related silliness. Again, from my research, the amount of movies I have seen in English, Tamil, Hindi, Japanese, German and French is extensive. I have a basic knowledge to analyze what a movie delivers and I would criticize a movie which doesn’t deliver according to the definitions dictated by the director or the story teller or whoever responsible. So when I take Endhiran into consideration, I can say that Rajinikanth has underplayed his Heroism and let the director take the helm. That has resulted in great creativity in most of the scenes. Let’s not talk about logic since I am not that brilliant enough to analyze scientific problems, neither can many of them out there. May be a few scientists can do it anytime. But the point is, I see many people commenting on the lack of logic in some scenes. Like for example, how could a Robot talk in different langugages or how can a robot dance etc etc… The whole point is, 1: It is fiction; 2: The definition of the Robot is such that it can do anything, just that it happens to be Rajinikanth, hence the questions!
Again, great article Grady! I just wanted to share some thoughts, hence the comments! DOT
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This is what happens when the reputed “Editors” ask their copy or sub-edits to write their “editorial”
Its so hilarious to see though that the print media is so naive that they don’t realize that such blatant lifting can be detected in minutes now a days. They still live in the ages when they used to reproduce stuff verbatim, just like the bollywood directors and music directors, thinking nobody will ever know. Dude, Internet has dwarfed you all!
i dont feel the tamil film industry is poor cousin of hindi cinema .it really sounds patronising .first of all comparisons needs to done in a just manner ,hindi has around 400 million speakers worldwide ,tamil has just around 70 million speakers,may i also add tat speakers of other related languages can understand hindi to a large extent,so logically hindi has a bigger potential market.
But hindi cinema is just becoming more slick today and gains most money from the metros and lost a large audience interior&rural india whereas tamil films explore almost all genres and is slowing gaining fans and both domestically and internationally.
so given the scope of tamil cinema and southern cinema as a whole we can proudly say the above mentioned industries are doing a good job at moviemaking.
i feel that sometimes that native hindi speakers are like americans .they need , want,and expect everyone to understand their language without respecting the language of other people.
Grady,
The whole tiger-nado-earthquake spawn is an impressive and amazing combination. I really can’t believe that they made Aroon Purie appologize for your words. Did you ever hear back from India Today?
Thanks,
Patricia
I didn’t hear back from him. That single sort of non-apology is all he ever said on the matter. But I wish he had written back and he and I could have struck up a fabulous, but unlikely friendship as a couple of plagarisin’ pals!