The Imitators
A still from the Amitach Bachchan starrer Agneepath (1990), inspired by Scarface (1883).
Bollywood has had a long history of finding “inspiration”—or barefaced plagiarism. Nivedita Dey recounts the many films, songs, and creators who imitated from the West (and more) and muses on the value of artistic originality.
In Anant Mahadevan’s The Storyteller (2022)—based on a popular short story by Satyajit Ray, Golpo Boliye Tarini Khuro (Uncle Tarini, the storyteller)—the protagonist, Tarini, is hired by an apparently insomniac Gujrati businessman to tell him original bedtime stories to help him sleep. Tarini soon discovers the nefarious ploy of his employer who earns popularity by publishing the former’s original stories as his own. In a witty turn of events, Tarini exposes him as a plagiarist before the world in his own ingenious way.
While Ray’s narrative is linear, with no subplots or deeper discourses on the psyche and the ethicality of plagiarism, The Storyteller’s script adds several layers to it, portraying the two pivotal characters, Tarini Bandopadhay (Paresh Rawal) and Ratan Garodia (Adil Hussain) as rounder and humanly complex. It alters a few peripheral characters, and even introduces new ones, such as Garodia’s unrequited love, Saraswati (Revathy), librarian Suzie Fibert (Tannishtha Chatterjee), and Anuradha (Anindita Bose), the deceased wife of Tarini (the last of which must have scandalized every Bengali reader, who know Ray’s Tarini as a confirmed bachelor).
The screenplay is unhurried and lyrical, dappled with humour, wit, sarcasm, pathos, existential philosophy, and socio-political commentary, transforming both Tarini and Garodia into two complex human beings with subjective and somewhat polar worldviews, aspirations, short-comings, and compromises. While Tarini suffers from imposter syndrome and never attempts to pen his original stories, the imposter Garodia, ironically, has no such qualms and is quick to secretly note them down and publish them under his pen name. Up to a point in the plot, it feels that the film almost defends Garodia’s plagiarizing Tarini’s original work, because Tarini never did justice to his creative talent by publishing them himself, and the former needed it for an apparently noble cause of winning his ladylove’s admiration. Tarini himself voices this precise justification to his NRI son, who is outraged by Garodia’s deceit, telling him that thus Garodia “completes” him.
At this point one begins to wonder if plagiarism is justifiable, perhaps for a seemingly noble cause. The answer to this is supplied by Tarini himself at the climax, when he exacts his revenge as well as exposes Garodia before the literary world as a fraud. Tarini’s character in the film is an idealist, a socialist and a staunch anti-capitalist, and Garodia faces perfect poetic justice for his crimes of plagiarism.
The final redemption arrives for both the protagonists in form of their respective self-actualization. Tarini, worldly-wiser after this experience, and more confident about the saleability of his stories, begins putting them on paper. Meanwhile Garodia—realizing his mistake and inspired by his own experience of Tarini—decides that, after all, it is easy to pen original stories.
A final commentary on the timeless discourse of original-versus-copy that Mahadevan subtly touches upon is easy to get overlooked by causal audience: as both Tarini and Garodia begin penning their own fictional accounts of their mutual experience, they are essentially penning the exact same story, only from their subjective points of view.
According to Voltaire, “Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.” I prefer to christen this creative grey-zone as ‘the paradox of existential intertextuality’.
What happens when two different writers write the same story at the same time? When several persons are participants to one event, whose creative rendering of the same is deemed original and whose narration a copy or an after-thought? According to Voltaire, “Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.” I prefer to christen this creative grey-zone as ‘the paradox of existential intertextuality’. What will emerge out of such parallel creative acts of the two writers is left intriguingly open-ended in The Storyteller.
The question that is not so open-ended is the one of plagiarism. Human imagination is deeply subjective, and how two individuals render a singular shared experience into art using their own creative lens and style is the very foundation of artistic originality. Plagiarism, on the other hand, is a black-and-white crime committed by creative aridity, unlawfully stealing another’s intellectual property.
A Long History of Plagiarism in Bollywood
As a Bollywood buff since childhood, one of my deep disappointments has been around how the industry is one such space where intellectual property thefts have been occurring for decades. Countless Hollywood and other foreign language films have been copied into Hindi and released, without any on-screen credit or the slightest official acknowledgement of it being a ‘remake’.
Some of these are almost frame-by-frame copy, such as Dilip Shankar’s Aatank Hi Aatank (1995) from The Godfather (1972), and Indra Kumar’s Mann (1999) from An Affair To Remember (1957). Then there are those innumerable films that lift a primary idea/plot under the pretext of creative inspiration, and ‘Bollywoodize’ the context, merely tweaking the setting, the characters, or the events, all of which make legally pinning such films down as plagiarized content difficult. Fans of Amitabh Bachchan may be disheartened to know that several superhit films of the ‘angry, young man’ were imitations disguised as ‘inspiration’, such as the 1982 Satte Pe Satta (Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, 1954), 1990’s Agneepath (Scarface, 1983), and 2002’s Kaante (Reservoir Dogs, 1992).
Even the iconic Ramesh Sippy film Sholay (1975), written by the Salim-Javed duo (Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar) is ‘inspired’. Having attended my earliest screenwriting workshop under Akhtar, I was dismayed to later discover that the script for Sholay is said to have ‘heavily borrowed’ from The Magnificent Seven (1960) and several other Hollywood movies. The screenplay even copies a scene frame-by-frame from Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). There was also the 1989 Bachchan film Main Azad Hoon—written by Akhtar—whose director Tinu Anand alleged that Akhar copied from two Hollywood movies—Meet John Doe (1941) and Network (1976)—while he “led (Anand and Bachchan) to believe that they were working on an original script.”
It is estimated that above 25 per cent of Aamir Khan cult films are loose copies or “heavily borrowed” remakes, including Aatank Hi Aatank, Mann, 1991’s Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin (It Happened One Night, 1934, The Sure Thing, 1985), 1992’s Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar (Breaking Away, 1979), 1993’s Hum Hain Rahi Pyaar Ke (Houseboat, 1958), 1995’s Akele Hum Akele Tum (Kramer Vs Kramer, 1979), 2008’s Ghajini (a remake of 2005 Tamil film of the same name, inspired by Memento, 2000), 2013’s Dhoom 3 (The Prestige, 2006), and more. While Khan as an actor cannot be fully blamed for this, the makers responsible include renowned names such as Mansoor Khan, Nasir Hussain, Indra Kumar, Mahesh Bhatt, and Rakesh Roshan. In a striking contrast, Aamir Khan as a producer chose to walk the commendable path when he first purchased the remake rights Paramount Pictures’ Forrest Gump (1994) and then co-produced Laal Singh Chaddha (2022) with Paramount and Viacom 18.
Film critic Taran Adarsh ascertains about sixty percent of Bollywood films as copies of Hollywood, foreign or old Indian movies, “People lift stories, characterizations, plots, situations, even the way a frame is taken. They may say they were inspired by Hollywood, but they know in their heart that they have copied.”
The list of Shah Rukh Khan superhits that were “unofficial remakes” is even longer, including 1993’s Baazigar (A Kiss Before Dying, 1991), 1998’s Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (partly based on Sleepless in Seattle, 1993), 1997’s Dil Toh Pagal Hai (42nd Street, 1938), 1997’s Yes Boss (For Love or Money, 1993), 1992’s Chamatkar (Blackbeard’s Ghost, 1968), 2000’s Josh (West Side Story, 1961), 1995’s Ram Jaane (Angels with Dirty Faces, 1938), and 2021’s One 2 Ka Four (One Good Cop, 1991). In Khan’s 2007 hit Om Shanti Om (dir.: Farah Khan), the first half is alleged to have been copied from a story by Ajay Monga, who then had moved to Bombay High Cout against SRK and Red Chillies Entertainment for copyright infringement. The producers faced a similar lawsuit again in 2011, over RA.One, filed by Yash Patnaik who claimed that it was based on his original work. The High Court observed that “prima facie (Patnaik) had copyright in the concept” and this was not challenged by the makers of RA.One, who then had to deposit a sum of ₹1 crore prior its release.
There are many more such unofficial imitations across Hindi cinema, including the Kamal Hassain-starrer 1997 film Chachi 420 (Mrs. Doubtfire 1993), Ajay Devgn’s 1998 film Pyar Toh Hona Hi Tha (French Kiss, 1995), 2003’s Qayamat: City Under Threat (The Rock, 1996), 2005’s Main Aisa Hi Hoon (I Am Sam, 2001), Akshay Kumar’s 2004 Aitraaz (Disclosure, 1994), 2006’s Phir Hera Pheri (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, 1998), 2007’s Heyy Baby (Three Men and a Baby, 1987), and many more.
The tedious nature of the Indian judicial system, the financial stakes involved in long-drawn court procedures, and the tricky legal requisites to identify a work as ‘plagiarized’—like needing at least ten scenes directly copied from original source—often dissuade original creators, be it an Indian and from abroad, from suing guilty Bollywood productions for copyright violations. Under such circumstances, it is an open-secret that many Bollywood producers/directors have in the past often plagiarized content, while no one batted an eye.
As a professional scriptwriter, I’m only too well acquainted with the difficulties. A couple of years back, when I suddenly spotted the stark similarities between a Hindi script of mine and a Bengali treasure-trail film I was watching. Since I remembered having narrated the script to a producer-director in Kolkata some years back, I could quickly guess what must have happened thereafter. But because at that point my script was yet to be registered with the Screenwriters Association [SWA], I had no proper ground to file a lawsuit for copyright violation, nor had the necessary means to sustain in a legal battle against one of the renowned and powerful production houses of the country.
Veteran actress Ratna Pathak went as far as to bluntly say that “there were no real writers” in Bollywood during the 80s and 90s, “…I just saw plain copies of Hollywood movies, being made over and over again, and passed off as original.” While that may have been an exaggerated assessment, there’s no gauging to what extent Bollywood reeks of plagiarism. Film critic Taran Adarsh ascertains about sixty percent of Bollywood films as copies of Hollywood, foreign or old Indian movies, “People lift stories, characterizations, plots, situations, even the way a frame is taken. They may say they were inspired by Hollywood, but they know in their heart that they have copied.”
Consequentially, the Indian audience remains mostly unaware of such gross violations, unless they happen to have watched the original, or the press reports it post-release. Until about two decades ago, it was rare for copies in Indian cinema to get slapped with a lawsuit over copyright infringement. Only post-2000s, awareness and activism around Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) have been on the rise, as well as lawsuits for copyright infringement. Since then, several respectable production houses and filmmakers have faced allegations of plagiarism and consequent lawsuits.
The ‘90s have witnessed superhit Mahesh Bhatt directions like Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin (1991), Sadak (1991), Junoon (1992), Criminal (1995), Dushman (1998) Duplicate (1998), and more. Sadly, all of these were heavily borrowed from Western originals. Bhatt once justified copying Hollywood movies for his directorial and/or writing projects, saying, “I don’t believe in intellectual property. I’m a reactor, not a creator. I just recycle images that are fed into my brain.” Only in 2012, writer Kapil Chopra filed a copyright violation lawsuit against Vishesh Films, Mahesh and Mukesh Bhatt, Kunal Deshmukh, and Fox Star Studios for copying his story for Jannat 2 (2012). Chopra won the case and was credited as co-writer of the film along with a compensation of ₹20 lakhs.
Infamously, renowned filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali was dragged to court by three different writers just over Guzaarish (2010). First, veteran writer-director Dayanand Raajan accused Bhansaali of plagiarizing the film’s script from his unpublished novel Summer Snow, and served a legal notice against him and UTV Motion Pictures. Soon after, scriptwriter Akhil Rajendra Dwivedi sued Bhansali for ₹2 crores, alleging that the former had once narrated his original story on the lines of Guzaarish to the director, and while Bhansali liked it and promised to get back to Dwivedi, he never did, and instead stole his idea. Lastly, writer Tabish Romani dragged the director to court over plagiarizing his idea for Guzaarish, and also filed a complaint with the Film Writer’s Association, FWA’s Dispute Settlement Committee. FWA asked Bhansali to pay ₹10 lakh to Romani as compensation. The director eventually paid ₹3 lakhs and the case was settled out of court. Film critic Rangan Baradwaj highlighted some of the glaring similarities in the storyline and dialogues of Guzaarish with Whose Life Is It Anyway? and wrote, “The brazen brandishing of inspirations, again, is pure (and problematic) Bhansali.“
Director Sanjay Gupta, once described as “the renowned forger of the Eastern World” by Medium, churned out several rip-offs, and faced many legal battles, until he finally decided to credit the original sources for his remakes. Writer, director and TV producer Mahim Joshi slapped a ₹50 crore copyright infringement suit against the makers of Bajranji Bhaijaan (2015) in the Bombay High Court.
Then there are those greater embarrassing moments when international entertainment companies called out or sued certain Indian makers over copyright infringement. Sony Pictures sent a cease-and-desist notice to the producers of Partner (2007) and almost slapped them with a USD 30 million lawsuit for stealing from Hitch (2005). In an out-of-court settlement, Sony later acquired the world exclusive satellite broadcasting rights to Partner. 20th Century Fox slapped a copyright infringement lawsuit on the makers of Knock Out (2010) for brazenly copying from their film Phone Booth (2002). In a landmark judgement by Bombay High Court, first, its producers were made to deposit ₹1.5 crore with the court prior to its release, and later made to pay the same to Fox. The court decreed, “Furthermore, the producers of Phone Booth are not permitted to exploit their film in any manner whatsoever from March 5, 2013 onwards.”
For any sincere Bollywood lover, such instances evoke not so much anger as sadness. The Mumbai film industry certainly doesn’t lack talent. Why then, one wonders, can’t we have less of such lazy rip-offs and more of ground-breaking originals?
Bollywood Music Industry: A Murkier Scene
Intellectual property theft has been even more rampant in Bollywood’s music industry, but music directors have increasingly faced lawsuits for copyright violation only in the recent decades. Prior to that, generations of unsuspecting audience were frequently fed copied music.
Music maestros from the black-and-white Bollywood era—including S.D Burman, R.D. Burman, Kalyanji-Anandji, Shankar Jaikishan, Ravi, Usha Khanna, O.P. Nayyar, Salil Chaudhury, Hemant Mukherjee, Laxmikant-Pyarelal and many more—have been guilty of the same. Innumerable Hindi film songs deemed as “immortal melodies” from the 50s, the 60s’ and the 70s’, in reality, contain melody or music plagiarized from both domestic and international creators.
Earlier this year, Netflix released The Roshans, a documentary of the three generations of Bollywood’s Roshan family. Produced by Rakesh Roshan and Hritik Roshan, the mini-series covers the creative journey of music director Roshan, his sons, music director Rajesh Roshan, actor-turned-producer-director, Rakesh, and grandson, actor Hrithik. After the internet boom in India, it became a common knowledge that innumerable times Rajesh Roshan has copied portions of others’ music, merely tweaked the tempo, ‘Indianized’ the orchestra, and passed it off as his original work. While eminent Bollywood figures were roped in for interviews in The Roshans, the documentary ostensibly glorifies Rajesh Roshan’s musical “genius”, his versatility as a composer, and his success, while completely avoiding any mention of plagiarism by him, or even the lawsuit he has had to face over the same.
In a landmark judgment in the realm of IPR, Ram Sampath Vs Rajesh Roshan, 2008, the Roshan brothers and Filmkraft had to pay music director Ram Sampath ₹2 crore in compensation, as Rajesh Roshan was found guilty of copyright violations and plagiarism of the former’s work for the track of Krazzy 4 (2008). Rakesh Roshan later said, “Let me state my brother Rajesh Roshan had no hand in this. I told Rajesh to use that portion of the song. He asked me to take a NOC (from Soni-Ericsson), which I did.”
There is a lengthy playlist of iconic English songs which Rajesh Roshan has imitated in a variety of his productions, including Aqua’s “Barbie Girl”, The Eagles’ “Hotel California”, Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”, “Sexy Eyes” by Whigfield, Rednex’s “Cotton Eye Joe”, the original soundtrack of Chariots of Fire by Vangelis, and artists such as Cliff Richards, Madonna and many more. Des Pardes (1978), Baton Baton Mein (1979), Man Pasand (1980), Jurm (1990), Khel (1992), Dastak (1996) and Koyla (1997), each contain more than one rip-off, including chartbusters like “Uthhe Sabke Kadam”, “Jab Koi Baat Bigad Jaaye”, and “Jai Maa Kaali”. Some of Roshan’s other superhit songs from Bhagwan Dada (1986), Khoon Bhari Maang (1988), Kishan Kanhaiya (1990), Karan Arjun (1995), Daag, The Fire (1999), Kya Kehna (2000), are also copied.
However, Rajesh Roshan wasn’t the first person to steal music. Music maestros from the black-and-white Bollywood era—including S.D Burman, R.D. Burman, Kalyanji-Anandji, Shankar Jaikishan, Ravi, Usha Khanna, O.P. Nayyar, Salil Chaudhury, Hemant Mukherjee, Laxmikant-Pyarelal and many more—have been repeatedly guilty of the same. Innumerable Hindi film songs deemed as “immortal melodies” from the 50s, the 60s’ and the 70s’, in reality, contain melody or music plagiarized from both domestic and international creators.
Evergreen superhits such as “Babuji Dheere Chalna” (1954), “Yeh Hai Bombay Meri Jaan” (1956), “Dil Tadap Tadap Ke” (1958), “Ek Ladki Bhigi Bhagi Si”(1958), “Ajeeb Dastaan Hai Yeh” (1960), “Yeh Samaa Pyar Ka’”(1963), “Sayonara Sayonara” (1966), “Yeh Dil Na Hota Bechara” (1967), “Jeena Yahan Marna Yahan” (1970), “Yeh Shaam Mastani” (1971), “Chura Liya Hai” (1973), “Mehbooba O Mehbooba” (1976), “Ek Main Aur Ek Tu” (1975), and many more are all copies from Western songs.
This trend was further perpetrated through the ‘80s and ‘90s by Bappi Lahiri, Anu Malik, Anand-Milind, Nadeem Sravan, Jatin-Lalit, Dilip-Sameer, and others. Sanjeev–Darshan received severe criticism for plagiarizing almost the entire album of Mann (1999). Ironically, R.D. Burman—despite innumerable plagiarized compositions—received praise as a musical genius, until very recently when the internet connected the missing dots.
Meanwhile, the brazen approach by Bappi Lahiri and Anu Malik as they copied from Western chartbusters made them the most infamous offenders. Disco Dancer (1982) and Dance Dance (1987) were Bollywood blockbusters centred around musical themes; it is particularly ironic, then, that both contain blatantly plagiarized music. In the films, Lahiri copied Western originals for “Jimmy Jimmy, Jimmy, Aaja, Aaja, Aaja” (“Te’s O.K.V” by Ottawan), “Koi Yahan Aha Nache Nache” (“Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles), and “Krishna Dharti Pe Aaja Tu” (“Jesus” by Tielman Brothers), “Zoobie Zoobie” (“Brother Louie” by Modern Talking), and “Dil Mera Todo Naa” (“Don’t Break My Heart” by UB40) in the second. Some of the wildly popular ‘Bappi da’ hits from the 80s and 90s, such as, Tarzan’s “Jilele Jilele” (“Kelele” by Osibisa) and Pyara Dushman’s “Hari Om Hari Om” (“One Way Ticket” by Eruption), and “Tamma Tamma Loge” (“Tama” by Mory Kante) are outright copies, including parts of the lyrics. Similarly, Sharaabi (1984), Bhavna (1984) and Ghayal (1990) each have at least one or more plagiarized tunes. Lahiri has repeatedly ripped off portions from ABBA, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Barbra Streisand, Beethoven, and popular tracks such as “Raindrops Falling On My Head”, “Lambada”, “The Heat is On” and many more. It was sheer irony that Saregama filed a $500 million lawsuit against Universal Music Group over Dr. Dre for sampling the soundtrack of Lahiri’s “Kaliyon ka Chaman” (Jyoti, 1981)—and won the case too!
Amidst such a cesspool, a question that begs answer is whether Bollywood considers plagiarism as condemnable only when a creator lands up in a lawsuit over it? And if, until then, such frequent intellectual property right violations are excusable in the name of ‘inspiration’?
Like Lahiri, Anu Malik copied easily recognizable tunes from Western chartbusters, such as “Macarena” and “Self Control”, and artists like Beatles, Elvis Presley, Simon and Garfunkel, The Crickets, Nasrat Fateh Ali Khan, Edith Piaf and Beethoven. In some of his copies, he didn’t even attempt obfuscation via tweaking the original. “But You Love Me Daddy” (Akele Hum Akele Tum, 1999) and “I Was Made For Loving You Baby” (Jaanam Samjha Karo, 1999) not only copy the music, but also some of the exact words from their namesakes by Jim Reeves and Kiss respectively. At least 68 of his compositions, including chartbusters such as “Raja Ko Rani Se” (“Love Theme”, The Godfather) and “Dil Mera Churaya Kyun” (“Last Christmas” by Wham!), ‘Yeh Kaali Kaali Aankhen” (“The Man Who Plays The Mandolin” by Dean Martin; “Because of You” by The Cover Girls), “Sexy Sexy Mujhe Log Bole” (“Boys” by Summertime Love), and more contain Bollywoodized copies from the West.
Lalit Pandit, of the music director duo Jatin-Lalit, openly criticized Nadeem Shravan of plagiarizing music from Pakistani originals, and claimed that the entire industry knew of it at the time. While this may come as a shock to any Bollywood buff of the 90s swearing by the Nadeem-Shravan albums like Aashiqui, Sadak, Sajan, Phool Aur Kante and innumerable more, when one compares the tracks, it becomes evident that Pandit’s claim is true. Digging deeper into Jatin-Lalit’s compositions, one realizes that even they have copied music from the West, well beyond what Pandit acknowledges as taking only bits and pieces from here and there. This is true for some of their compositions for films like Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar (1992), Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998), Yes Boss (1997), Hum Tum (2004), and Fanaa (2006).
Anand-Milind have also been guilty of plagiarizing, less from the West, more from the South Indian music directors like Ilayiaraja and others. Some of their superhit songs from Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (1998), Baaghi (1990), Dil (1990), Beta (1992) and more are copied. Anand later confessed in an interview, “We were forced by the producer and director. They just wanted to copy a particular tune that they liked. Today, I regret what we did. I should have put my foot down and refused.”
Perhaps the latest addition to this notoriety is Pritam. The music director famed for Dhoom 2 (2006), Gangster (2006), and Life In A Metro (2007) has been accused of plagiarizing music on innumerable occasions. When asked about the same, he trivialized it by saying, “(It) indicates that my work is getting noticed… I don’t deny it. But then people have been copying from ages. Anybody who says he didn’t is lying.” So notorious was his track record for generously lifting tracks from various bands, that director Vipul Shah resorted to the legal precaution of making Pritam sign an anti-plagiarism indemnity clause for the music for Action Replayy (2010), placing all legal responsibility of his compositions solely on the music director. Later in his career, Pritam decided to stay away from copies, and even recreations. He once said, “Post all that (plagiarism accusation), I have been very particular. While working on a song, if someone says that a melody sounds a little like another song, I change it immediately. I have become paranoid.”
As internet became more readily available, claiming plagiarized songs as original became difficult. One wonders if that is one of the reasons why composers like Rajesh Roshan and Anu Malik went out of business post the internet boom in India exposing their art of imitation.
Oscar Wilde said, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.” Indeed, plagiarized art is a by-product of creative mediocrity and dishonesty. While Bollywood cannot be accused of creative aridity, it is also overflowing with cheap, and unlawful, imitations. Amidst such a cesspool, a question that begs answer is whether Bollywood considers plagiarism as condemnable only when a creator lands up in a lawsuit over it? And if, until then, such frequent intellectual property right violations are excusable in the name of ‘inspiration’?
The role Indian audience plays in this context demands a deeper enquiry too. Are Indian cinephiles equally responsible for letting the creatives in Bollywood copy so comfortably for decades, by turning several such copied films and music into box-office hits regardless, instead of holding the guilty accountable through public boycott of the same? The nuanced discourses around this are galore. Anyone who sincerely loves Bollywood and wishes for it to reach creative heights and achieve international respect would feel aggrieved over these many unanswered questions.
Disclaimer: The record of plagiarisms mentioned in this piece are available in the public domain.
***
Nivedita Dey is a poet from Kolkata, India. Her poetic philosophy is one of hope and transcendental humanism, and her debut poetry collection was Larkspur Lane: Branched Labyrinths of the Mind (Notion Press, 2022). Dey holds post-graduate degrees in English and Psychology. She is part of the editorial team of HNDL Magazine. She can be found at niveditadey.com, Twitter: @Nivedita_Writes, and Instagram: @niveditadeypoetry.
