Plagiarism in Hindi film music

Plagiarism in music is long prevailant and rampant in our Hindi film music. It has been that way since the initiation of Hindi film starting with SD Burman and reaching its glory with composers like RD Burman, Laxmikant Pyarelal, Rajesh Roshan, Shankar-Jaikishan, O.P Naiyar, Salil Choudhary, Kalyanji-Anandji, and Bappi Lahiri. Most of the music composed by these composers were either plagiarized tunes or inspired by some foreign tunes. Sometimes the copied songs are intelligently and subtly modified while in some cases it is a blatant complete tune and even beat to beat copy. The catch is, all these plagiarized music became hits and became rage among the masses. In those times, before the era of television, the Indian masses hardly had access to foreign music or even music in English. The popular culture was to listen to Hindi film music and hum along. But they hardly knew that most of the hummable tunes are copied.

How many people know that SD Burman copied Jeevan ke safar mein raahi for the film Munimji from the song The Mexican hat dance? The great songs in the film Chalti ka nam Gadi, 'Ek ladki bheegi bhagi si' is inspired by the song 'Sixteen Tons' , while 'Hum the woh thi' is inspired by the song 'The Watermelon song', both by Tennessee Ernie Ford. Even Yeh dil na hota from Jewel Thief was inspired by the song River Kwai March from the soundtrack of the David Lean classic, The Bridge on the River Kwai. And finally, Saala main tho sahaab ban gaya is lifted directly off a 1957 Italian track, 'Chella Llà', by the legendary Renato Carosone.

RD Burman composed great music for Hindi cinema but his immensely popular song Mehbooba, mehbooba from Sholay is a direct copy. How many of us know that the song is a direct lift from Demi Roussos' Say You Love Me? Same can be said about the opening tune and the lovely harmonica tune played by Amitav from Sholay which were plagiarized from Mackanna'a Gold. RD was an immensely gifted musician and he kept track of world music with a penchant. That is how he used the tunes from English songs and transformed them to gold in Hindi films. Infact, he is the pioneer in this field of plagiarism.Though he gave us wonderful music in all his films, but it still remains a fact that he lifted. Do not forget the immensely popular songs from Hum Kisise kam Nahi, which has several lifted tunes from the popular band Abba's music.

Laxmikant Pyarelal lifted tunes for the film Rajkumar. 'Payaal Meri' is a good version of George Michael's Faith! And 'Tere Naam Ke Hum Deewane' from Judaai is a beat to beat copy from Boney M's 'Brown Girl in the ring'. OP Naiyar copied 'Yeh hai bombay meri jaan' for the popular film CID from 'My darling Clementine' by Freddy Quinn. And believe it or not, the Geeta Dutt number 'Babuji dheere chalna' is a direct lift from the song 'Perhaps perhaps perhaps' covered by Doris Day.

Salil Choudhary was more intellectual in his plagiarism. He mostly lifted tunes from the symphonies of Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach. His popular Hindi number 'Itna Na Mujhse Tu Pyar Bada' is inspired from Mozart's 40th symphony and the famous 'Dil tadap tadap ke' song from Madhumati is inspired by the Polish folk song "Szla dzieweczka do gajeczka". All the songs by this composer has been improvised to a large extent to suit the exuberant mood of both the films and the tracks.

The RD mantle is justly worn by Bappi Lahiri who lifted tune after tune to create hit songs. Don't forget the immensely popular 'Tamma Tamma Loge' and 'Mera dil gaye ja' from Disco dancer. By that time several people knew that he copied generously from English tunes of Modern Talking. His 'Hari Om Hari' is a copy of 'One Way Ticket to Moon' and 'Sochna Kya' in Ghayal has been copied from 'Lambada'. Though he has the title of disco king, the first composer to introduce disco beats in hindi music, the fact remains that he is still a plagiarist and has maximum hit plagiarized songs to his credit.

The music scenario has not changed a bit after Nadeem Shravan, Ram Laxman, or Anu Malik came into the picture. All of them fell back, at various stages of their career, to outside music as their inspiration. The popular Stevie Wonder number 'I Just called to say I love you' was copied in the hit film 'Maine Pyar Kiya' by Ram Laxman and became a rage of the generation. Almost all songs of Qayamat se Qayamat tak has been copied tunes. So has Anu Malik's lifts from 'Macarena' and 'Les Ketchup' as well as the Arabic and Lebanese tunes in the film Murder. And the opening portion of his immensely popular song 'Sandeshe Aate hai' in the film Border is inspired from 'With A little help From my friends' by Beatles. One good thing about Anuji is that he listens to tunes in foreign languages and gets inspired. And we must acknowledge that the songs are real hits and hummed by the generation. Nadeem Shravan's speciality was mostly soft english numbers from 50's and 60's english pop. They are the ones who introduced many of the Cliff Richard numbers in Hindi films, of course in its version.

And now there is this whole lot of GenX composers like Pritam, Vishal Sekhar, Salim Suleiman who practices the same cult left as a legacy by their predecessors. Pritam especially tries to bring in a newness to plagiarism by copying the music of regional songs and music bands. He bought Bangladesh singer James to sing many of his own songs in hindi as well as some from songs of Bangla bands. As Pritam says, "I told myself: ‘Don’t touch an English song since people have heard it’. I thought it would be better to be inspired by obscure songs without realising that the Internet has made the world smaller and even the most obscure song can easily be traced".

Lastly, our very own oscar winning music maestro AR Rahman has composed the song immensely popular 'Shakalaka Baby' inspired by the rhythm loop with an underground feel found in the track 'Flight IC 408' by State of Bengal and the track 'Aint talkin bout dub' by Apollo 440. And most of his Tamil hits are inspired by music from Africa, Osibisa, and Lebo M to name a few.

Lifting tunes is a trend one can't do away in Bollywood. Getting inspiration to compose fresh for every project is tiresome and difficult. The musicians too get music blocks (like writer's block). These English/foreign tunes act as saviours for them in those crisis hours of deadpan phases.

I am not condemning these musicians and composers, as the songs they copy have all become hits and rage among masses. Since the exposure to world music is still very little for the common masses, at least the public is exposed to some good music through these plagiarized versions.