Monday, February 14, 2022

One Idea Several People

There is a Hollywood movie, Marry Me, was released last week all over USA. Directed by Kat Coiro. 

In this movie, the heroine rejected her fiancé in the marriage alter and marries someone from the audience on the spot. The story is about how their life turned out after the wedding. 

Why I am writing about this? 12 years ago, September 16, 2009, I wrote a blog post titled “Random Thoughts about Marriage”. I mentioned about 4 real life incidents. I reproduce one incident here from that blog post. 

This happened in Mumbai, I was told. In those days there was a 3 year waiting list to get a vespa scooter. In a particular marriage, part of the dowry deal was the bride’s father should give the groom a vespa scooter on the marriage day. The marriage day came and the bride’s father could not deliver the vespa scooter because of the waiting list. He said he has the money and will give the money. This was not acceptable to the groom side. They argued and argued and argued in front of so many guests. Finally, the bride told the groom he has 10 minutes to decide. That 10 minutes came and gone. The groom was not willing unless a vespa scooter was produced. The bride took the mike and told the gathering as to what is happening and asked if any of the guests is willing to marry her that very minute. One of the groom’s friends came forward. Bingo. They both got married immediately. 

Did the producers of this movie “took” the idea from my blog post? Or more than one person can come up with the same idea? 

Something similar happened many years ago. 

We were in a get together in Chennai. The discussion was Tamil literature, particularly Silappatikaram, a Tamil Epic. It is a tragic love story of Kannagi and her husband Kovalan. As the story goes, the Pandya King in Madurai executes Kovalan by mistake on a false charge. Kannagi gets very mad and burns the entire city of Madurai in Tamil Nadu. 

I jokingly mentioned in that get together, Kannagi is the role model for the modern day political parties to burn and destroy public properties during protests and agitations. 

Much to my surprise, two years later, in a Tamil movie, the same sentence (Kannagi is the role model) was expressed. 

Did someone who was in that get together “took” the idea from there? Or more than one person can come up with the same idea?

14 comments:

  1. I remember those two incidents and have seen the second one in the movie, the first one I have not seen the movie. Apart from those two, few more ideas of yours have come in Tamil movies. Ofcourse more than one person can come up with the same idea but this is too much for a coincidence. There is every possibility they could have picked up the idea from you without your knowledge

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    1. Thanks for your comments Gowri. Remember that Kannagi discussion in Mr. Radhamohan's home? You were also there.

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  2. Your ideas are good. Influential people could have taken your ideas and capitalized on it.
    Solution is that you console yourself and say to yourself that a friendly guy has taken your idea.
    Or you can really think deep and come up with a genius idea. Perhaps the friendly guy may have guilt lifting your idea.
    So it depends whether the friendly guy is still friendly or has guilt. This will act as a barometer for you and you will come to know how good you are. He he he !!

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    1. Thanks for your comments Kirtivasan. Interesting.

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  3. Yeah exactly. In Radha's house in Kodambakkam

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  4. Perhaps different people get the same ideas at the same time? But there might always be influences - Ur ideas may have traveled somehow...

    Destination Infinity

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    1. Thanks for your comments Rajesh. You could be correct.

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  5. Interesting blog SG....maybe the same idea popped in multiple people's head at different times .... or maybe it was all you ..... I have heard directors/producers of movies have people employed who watch other language movies or read books blog to get ideas ....

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    1. Thanks for your comments Dee. You could be right.

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  6. Mr. K. Parthasarathi wrote the following comments:

    “Ideas are simply incidents we have read, heard or seen somewhere at sometime in the past and may also be carried by many others who had been witness to them or read or heard about them. The source is usually forgotten especially when transmitted verbally.As a result they may get duplicated unknowingly but run the risk of plagiarism.
    When I run out of plots for my stories, i ask my friends for help and whatever suggestions they give might be someones idea, even modified. In fact there is nothing original in this world. Even for some of the modern discoveries, there are people to point out references in ancient scriptures to prove they are not original. What to say of movies that rely mostly on borrowed lines, tunes and themes?”

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    1. Thanks for your comments Mr KP. You could also be right.

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  7. Nice one! Difficult to say. People read lot of stuff on internet. Quite possible that the idea came off your blog post. Difficult to prove either way!

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    1. Thanks for your comments Pradeep. Yes, you could be right.

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