Pritam accused of Plagiarism for the music of Bhram

By Anant Narayan -

April 3, 2008 - 12:00 AM IST

Sources claim that Pritam's track 'Jaane Kyun' in the movie Bhram, is a note-to-note lift of a Bengali song 'Ghare Pheraar Gaan'. However, the music composer says a controversy is being created as a publicity stunt and that all accusations of plagiarism against him are totally false and baseless. Plagiarism is not exactly a revelation for Bollywood's billion-dollar music industry. Jogging our memory a little, music stalwarts Bappi Lahiri and Anu Malik have often been accused of lifting melodies and tunes from western tracks and replicating them with Indian lyrics. But this time around, it's contemporary music maestro Pritam who have been alleged of plagiarism. An industry insider, on condition of anonymity, informs, "Pritam usually takes caution when it comes to drawing his 'inspiration', so he settles for lesser-known Arabic, Turkish, European, and Latino bands. And maybe that's why it's difficult to pin him down. However, this time, he's in the dock for copying creations of one of Kolkata's most revered bands," says the source. Here's how the story goes - sometime last year, the makers of Bhram- An Illusion, starring Dino Morea, Milind Soman and supermodel Sheetal Menon in lead roles, had approached Pritam to compose the music for their upcoming film in the hope that he would come up with original compositions for their film. But as the film was ready for release, all hell broke loose a day before the film's music launch as one discovered that his song 'Jaane Kyun' was inspired from a Bengali song. On further investigation, sources concluded that the number in question is actually a direct lift of a Bengali song, 'Ghare Pheraar Gaan', composed by the Kolkata-based 70's music group Mohinder Ghoraguli whose compositions are an eclectic mix of Baul and folk traditions of Bangla and rock. A well-placed source says, "When we approached Pritam, he was already on a high courtesy his successful track record off late. After some meetings, he agreed to compose the tracks of our film Bhram. But despite his initial consent, he kept claiming how busy he was with other projects and therefore found no time to compose tunes for us. Then finally, he was ready with two songs." On this controversy; the official spokesperson of Magna films says, "We have paid Pritam for the music and hope his compositions are original. In case they have been inspired from some other music groups, we hope he has sought permission from the concerned parties. If not, we believe he should have taken permission before selling his music to us as his original compositions." But were there monetary issues involved? "Not at all. The producers paid Pritam a hefty price," claims another reliable source. However, when we got in touch with Pritam, the music director was astounded at the false accusation and quickly gave his side of the story. "A controversy is being created for nothing. Whoever is spreading such malicious things about me is only doing so because Bhram is a small budget film that desperately needs publicity. Therefore, someone has to be the scapegoat. And in this case, it's me. All these accusations are completely false and baseless. All legal rights of the compositions have been legally bought from Mr. Lahiri of Asha Studio, Kolkata, and the tracks have been credited to Gautam Chatterjee, the original composer of the songs in question. You can ask them and they will vouch for the legality involved. I'm being targeted for no fault of mine. Maybe the confusion arose because the initial 30-40 CD's sent out during the press conference did not have the mentioned credits due a glitch from the production side, but the copies that have hit the market all carry the credit of Gautam Chatterjee on the CD cover. So the very question of plagiarism does not arise," says a livid Pritam.