Last week, there was chatter about a Pakistani show being a blatant copy of popular Indian sitcom Sarabhai Vs Sarabhai. According to The Indian Express, writer-producer of the said show, Aatish Kapadia, took to Facebook and expressed discontentment over an unofficial remake of his cult drama. Kapadia, without naming the show, shared that he cringed seeing the awful performances in the show. The writer added that the daylight robbery is appalling.
“So much for copyright! And I don’t mean the technical copyright. I mean the shameful lack of conscience that those thieves displayed while lifting the show, lock stock and barrel! Waiting for poetic justice, if there’s any,” shared Kapadia, adding that while “imitation is the best form of flattery, lack of permission before illegal imitation is amorality.”
"I mean getting inspired and having made a show on the lines of Sarabhai vs Sarabhai is understandable. Khichdi had inspired many makers to come up with a show on the lines of Khichdi. The problem of course was that they didn’t understand the logic behind creating those illogical people," he went on. "Similarly, inspired versions of Sarabhai have got it wrong, because they thought it was a show only about class conflict; which was just one aspect of it. Written by using inversion as a tool. But this blatant copy!? My god, it’s appalling. My request to my friends is to NOT give that show ‘views’, by chance you come across that daylight robbery."
Soon after his post, Actor Rajesh Kumar aka Rosesh of Sarabhai Vs Sarabhai, too, shared his two cents on the controversy. He, however, was rather more direct and named the 'copy'. The actor, according to Hindustan Times, sounded bitter and angry talking about the rip-off. Calling it a poor attempt, Kumar says that they completely misunderstood the essence of the sitcom.
“We got this as a Whatsapp forward and couldn’t believe that this has actually happened. This Pakistani show called Chana Jor Garam is a frame to frame copy. It’s a total copyright violation. They’ve destroyed the essence of the show, seems like they’ve not understood the show, to begin with, and made a complete mockery out of it. The humour is substandard. It’s a disaster,” said Kumar.
The actor goes on to add that anyone who has watched Sarabhai Vs Sarabhai will immediately reject this weak adaptation.
“Aatish Kapadia has rightly said, it’s a daylight robbery. To me, this is dacoity. People are taking advantage of the things available in our country and recreating a show without understanding the social structure it was based on, without knowing the storyline properly. They’re just making a circus out of it. It’s utterly ridiculous. I don’t think classic shows like this can be recreated,” he states.
The actor then added the Sarabhai Vs Sarabhai team plans on taking legal action against the channel. “We don’t want to give them any publicity by talking much about it but we want to at least put this out this isn’t acceptable,” he added.
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