Monday, July 04, 2005
INIMITABLE
Some time ago, Nida Fazli, an outstanding poet and reluctant lyricist, accused his peer Sameer of lifting one line verbatim from one of his earlier compositions. Nothing wrong with that, perfectly fine to have a senior poet not amused by his work filched by another.
The trouble is—How does one go about proving this ? The words themselves are not shrouded in mystery, being rather commonplace and trite. Thoughts, such fleeting creatures do not lend themselves to capture and powers of expression can be duplicated. Is it possible that Sameer may have managed pen that controversial line on his own ?
As some say, if there were a vast number of monkeys typing randomly on keyboards, they would between them manage to replicate every work of Shakespeare.
Statistically !
Some time ago, Nida Fazli, an outstanding poet and reluctant lyricist, accused his peer Sameer of lifting one line verbatim from one of his earlier compositions. Nothing wrong with that, perfectly fine to have a senior poet not amused by his work filched by another.
The trouble is—How does one go about proving this ? The words themselves are not shrouded in mystery, being rather commonplace and trite. Thoughts, such fleeting creatures do not lend themselves to capture and powers of expression can be duplicated. Is it possible that Sameer may have managed pen that controversial line on his own ?
As some say, if there were a vast number of monkeys typing randomly on keyboards, they would between them manage to replicate every work of Shakespeare.
Statistically !
