How Kaavya got paid, got wild and slipped

Well,

So Kaavya Viswanathan's has to undergo what must be the ultimate humiliation for a writer….to have her books withdrawn from all bookstores because of plagiarism….




Plagiarism is simply a polite word for plain old cheating….and that’s what she obviously is…..

Ever since the Harvard periodical brought out charges that atleast 10 passages (now we know its upward of 40) from her book How Opal Mehta Got Kissed Got Wild and Got A Life has been lifted almost straight out from Megan F McCafferty's books Sloppy Firsts (published in 2001) and Second Helping (published in 2003). And what was her reaction and defense? That she might have internalized the passages from her books and she must have unconsciously reproduced them…..if what she says is true, then she must have a superhuman photographic memory with an ability to remember the A’s and the THE’s exactly as they occur, with only the names changing…..

Let me first lay down what gets me in these issues…..

Firstly, its irritating why an untried author gets half a million for writing a book…I simply cant fathom the working of the major publishing houses these days…..though I am starting to get an idea how the things work out (the book packager comes out with an outline and they pay someone like Kaavya to put in the words….a creativity killer as any)….let me put down what I do understand….

its like the formulae driven Bollywood films…..the publisher feels that this is a safe concept (read non-controversial, non- taxing, easy page-turner), so lets pay an obscene amount to somebody especially with someone above-average writing skills preferably with Harvard credentials, create a hoopla about the amount and the book will sell…..its more or less a tried and tested method and it does work…..few of the people who went to buy the book really wanted to read it….they felt that they wanted to read it because of the amount (so they go like…hmmm lets see what made them pay so much)….an insidious marketing if any…..

If anything is killing creativity, it is this….and we wonder why we don’t bring out good books anymore!!!! Because most of us don’t know a good book until our media tells us so…..

Secondly look at the material of the book…..I took it from a friend and read it (after the controversy broke out…see, even controversy helps sell, even when you know how it works)…..I have only one word for it….inane, banal and downright silly (ok so there were more than one word!!!), starting from the title….I don’t know how people read it and feel that they have read something substantial…I mean even five point someone was better than this…atleast it was enjoyable….

Now, doesn’t material count anymore or is it simply the topic and hang the substance (the marketing takes care of all sales….they get the money….who cares about the reader??)

However the central issue is, why did she cheat? I think it has a lot to do with the hype, fame and the pressure to deliver (remember, she had a two-book deal)….so it was more like an assembly line churning mentality…..she must have thought that nobody would notice that closely….she wanted that money so quickly that she simply lifted paragraphs and changed the names….aren’t we all familiar with that story now? Of the depths people can stoop to for that 15 minutes of fame…..there is no doubt that she was brilliant (she got to Harvard didn’t she), and if she had just worked for some more time, she would have got something original….but she didn’t….why?....English has a simple, yet powerful word for it…..

Greed