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Praise be to the
parodist IT is often said Plagiarism is a crime, not parody. At first look, this may look rather odd. For both the plagiarist and the parodist are pickers of ideas. They thrive on the work of others. Why, then, is the plagiarist condemned and not the parodist? The plagiarist claims that his work is his own. He makes all efforts to cover up his tracks. He hopes that none would ever locate the sources from where he has lifted passages bodily and inserted in his presentation without putting them in quotes. Often he is so lazy and tardy and over-confident that he just presents the work of another person as his own, without the slightest of tinkering. He reproduces the work without even changing a comma and struts around proudly till some alert reader see him for what he is and knocks him down with the charge that he is shining in borrowed plumes. He is seen for what he is, a mean and despicable criminal who steals the ideas and work of truly original thinkers. The parodist is open
and frank. He doesn’t make any effort whatsoever to cover up the
source from where he gets the spark for his work. Not for him such
devious means. Usually, he tells the world, at the very start, that
his work is a parody. So nobody need give him undue credit. |
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There is another redeeming quality that I note in a parodist. He is no blind copycat. He has his own streak of creativity. He takes off from a well-known passage or article, creatively tinkers with it, burns the midnight oil, if I may say so, (though the idiom is totally out of tune with our times, electric lamps having replaced the wicker lamp or the lantern, (though Laloo Yadav still sticks to it, holds it as his party’s election symbol and hopes to light the path to political eminence for himself and his better half), to redraft the text. He uses the original as a sort of model. He expects the original to bare itself as gracefully as the model does for a painter. He plays with words, takes a word here, takes off a word there, inserts new phrases in place of existing ones in the original, amends and alters the text till he gets the parody right. Hard work is the hallmark of the parodist. (The lazy bum is the plagiarist). Some of the best parodies I have read are take off of the Lord’s Prayer, the one that starts with, Our Father, who art in heaven..... Here is one version, prepared by Ray Bourne to describe the plight of English cricket team touring Australia seven years back. Our Batsmen who art in trouble, Patience be thy game, Your time will come,/ You will not fail, In the World Cup, as it was at Perth, Give us this day three hundred runs, And deliver us from fast bowlers, Forget them that aim at our heads, But let them all be ‘no balls’, Lead us not into false snicks, But let us hi boundaries Let ours be victory over rivals, For ever and ever, Amen. Joyce Kelmer’s famous poem On Tree starts with I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. This poem has been parodied by many people. Ogden Nash noted: I think that I shall never see Abill-board as lovely as a tree. Perhaps until the billboards fall I’ll never see a tree at all. Another parodist wrote: I think that I shall never see A poem as lovely as a tree. I’d hoped, of course, that there would be A tree left for me to see. Some lumber firm from out of town Has chopped the whole darn forest down; But I’ll show up those dirty skunks I’ll go and write a poem called Trunks. The epitaph often takes poetic form. Who wrote the epitaph for privy purses? Mrs Indira Gandhi, of course. When the bill to scrap the privy purses were being debated, in 1970, KCS of Bombay parodied Robert Frost’s famous poem that starts with the line, The woods are lovely, dark and deep.... The purse is lovely, with no check, But I have promises to break And smiles to bless the purses’s wreck When princes get it on the neck. Often parodied is Gurudev Tagore’s famous poem, Where the head is held high. In January 1981, S. Madan of Pune parodied the poem to record his new year wishes. Where bread and water are available to all; Where speech is free; Where women are not raped and human eyes are not gorged* out by the keepers of the law*; Where justice is just and prompt; Where men are judged by their integrity and not by their religions and riches; Where corruption is abhorred and not rewarded; Where youth is the spine of the nation and not the name of a denim or a discotheque; Where the country and not the family is the prime concern of the rulers, Towards that haven of freedom, my father, let my country strive, struggle and sacrifice In 1981 and always. Because there and there alone can the head be held high. (*This refers to Bhagalpur blinding.) I found this parody by O.J. Nicy of Mangalore in the Week in March 1999. Where the mind is full of fear And heads are held down in shame; Where knowledge is restricted to a few And society broken by narrow domestic walls; Where children are burnt alive And babes dumped in drains; Where nuns are raped and Dalits shot down; Where law can be bent and moulded to suit individual needs; Where even a game of cricket cannot be watched in peace, Oh God! From this nightmare of a dream, Let my country awake. When political defection became very rampant in 1970s, S.P. Jain of Bhilwara turned out this parody with apologies to Matthew Arnold. Others abide by their promises Defector! Thou art free! We ask and ask — Thou smilest or speakest still, Out-topping our knowledge! So some defectors’ camp, Who to the throne of power, uncrown his secrecy, Planting his shifting loyalty in the best bait, Dreaming the ministerial berth his destined place. Spare but the conscience, often, for the public good, To the fold searching of foolish mortality; And Thou, whose headless head did gods alone know, Self-tutored, self-deceived, self-illusioned, self-worshipped, Didst walk on earth guessing pastures new — Better so! All greeds the mortal coil must endure, All temptation which propel, all illusions the golden goose show, Find their sole voice in their victorious brow. When Mr Bhosle was the Chief Minister of Maharashtra, this parody of a nursery rhyme was churned out by his critics. Baba Bhosle! Have you any brains? Yes, sir, yes, sir, Three little grains. One for my Madam, One for myself, One for the public Which bears all the pains. (Sunday May 1982). Heard in Punjab Assembly, after the grandson of the then Chief Minister, late Beant Singh, was arrested for allegedly molesting a French tourist, (He was recently acquitted), was a parody of a film tune, Amma Dekh.... Dada dekh, haan dekh, Tera pota bigada jaaye. How about this parody of Longfellow by a company executive who stuck to principles and was left behind in the rat race? The heights by great men reached and kept Were not attained so casually; But they while their companions slept, Pulled strings to push up gradually. I have pulled the strings of memory to dig out these parodies. Now, dear reader, who is also playing
the role of Lord Judge! Do you think the parodist deserves a big hand?
You do. Good. Let us cheer him and pray, "May his tribe
increase!" |
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