Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan has been dragged into a controversy on social media for sharing a poem without giving credits to the person who wrote it. The avid social media user took to his Facebook and Twitter accounts on December 24 (Thursday) to share a few lines of a poem in Hindi along with a picture of himself. However, he missed out on sharing the name of the poet.
The controversy, however, erupted after the woman who reportedly wrote that poem replied to the megastar’s posts. One Tisha Aggarwal, took to Facebook and Twitter to claim that the poem Big B had shared was actually written by her. “Sir, these lines are mine. At least give credit”, reacted Tisha Agarwal.
Within minutes she retweeted Amitabh Bachchan’s post captioning it: “When Amitabh Bachchan copies your post and does not even give credit, should you be sad or overjoyed?”
She requested him to atleast give her the due credit. She said she would have been very happy had the megastar given her credit for her work.
Tisha Agarwal’s posts did not go unnoticed. Many people took to social media to question the cine icon.
One Facebook user Pradeep Shukla spoke on how one Youtuber named Gyan Prakash Mishra had once received a legal notice from Amitabh Bachchan for sharing his father Harvansh Rai Bachchan’s poem on his Youtube channel. Though Mishra recited the poem after giving due credit to Harvansh Rai Bachchan, still Amitabh was so furious that he sued him. Mishra wrote emails, sent the megastar messages asking for apology, but Amitabh was not ready to let go, said Pradeep Shukla.
Schooling the actor for his hypocrisy, one user reminded Big B how in 2017, he had sued AAP leader Kumar Vishwas for copyright infringement of Harivansh Rai Bachchan’s poem and today he did the same thing.
प्रिय @SrBachchan सर, मुझे याद है हरिवंश राय बच्चन जी की कविता की कुछ पंक्तियां @DrKumarVishwas ने अपने एक काव्यपाठ में उपयोग की थीं, उन्हें आपने लीगली स्यू किया था, लेकिन आज आपने @TishaAgarwal14 जी की सम्पूर्ण कविता बिना मूल लेखक टीशा को क्रेडिट दिए छाप दी, यह क्या है ? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/IOQHPJDWf1
— गौरव चौहान अमरोहवी (@Amrohvi_Gaurav) December 24, 2020
For the unversed, in 2017, Amitabh Bachchan has sent a legal notice to AAP leader Kumar Vishwas for using a poem by the megastar’s late father, the poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan in a video, and asked him to give an account of the revenue generated from it. Bachchan had then said that the video, in which Vishwas was seen singing the poem, was a “copyright infringement” and should be removed from the popular video-sharing site YouTube, within 24 hours.
Meanwhile, some called Amitabh Bachchan “arrogant” for using someone else’s work without giving due credit.
ख़ुद वाहवाही लूटने की चाह मे यदि हम किसी की कला की सराहना नही कर सकते तो यह मिली प्रशंसा हमारे”अभिमान”की ओर इशारा करती है!
— Rachana puranik (@rachana_puranik) December 24, 2020
जय हिंद!
Others too slammed the actor accusing him of plagiarism.
@SrBachchan साहब @TishaAgarwal14 जी का लिखा लेख अपनी वाल पर चेपते हुये आपके हाथ नहीं कांपे।🤔 pic.twitter.com/nhqlCoxKSt
— VIJAY SWAMI (@Vijay_S87) December 24, 2020
प्रिय @SrBachchan सर, @TishaAgarwal14 जी का लिखा बिना क्रेडिट दिए अपने नाम से चेपते हुए आपको तनिक भी शर्म नहीं आई??? pic.twitter.com/6hhoc5nKzV
— Ashutosh Jha Mithu ♥️ (@AshutoshMithu1) December 24, 2020
OpIndia got in touch with Tisha Agarwal, who claims to be the original writer of the poem shared by Amitabh Bachchan. Tisha said that though plagiarism has become rampant on social media servers with most people using someone else’s tweets, comments, and blogs by showing them as own, at least celebrities that too someone like megastar Amitabh Bachchan should act responsibly and should not indulge in such flippant acts.
Tisha said: “Last night, I saw Amitabh ji’s post and I understood that these lines are mine. Then I also checked on my Facebook wall, which convinced me that this is my poem. I also searched on Google and I realised that this poem had been published by many other bloggers, and some people had also published it in their own voices on YouTube.”
Tisha said that when she shared this post on her Facebook wall, some people informed her about the 2017 incident when Senior Bachchan had got so irked that he sued AAP leader Kumar Vishwas for using his father’s poem. She said that many have advised her to do the same. However, she does not want to take any decision in haste and would only decide after discussing the issue with her family.