After his ugly spat with Sunil Grover, Kapil Sharma has landed himself in yet another controversy. Stand-up comedian Abijit Ganguly has accused 'The Kapil Sharma Show' of plagiarism!
'The Kapil Sharma Show' accused of plagiarism by stand-up comedian
Kapil Sharma and Abijit Ganguly
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After his ugly spat with Sunil Grover, Kapil Sharma has landed himself in yet another controversy. Stand-up comedian Abijit Ganguly has accused 'The Kapil Sharma Show' of plagiarism!
In a Facebook post dated April 24 that has gone viral, Abijit Ganguly accuses 'The Kapil Sharma Show', Kapil Sharma and Kiku Sharda of plagiarising his joke and using it in their 100th episode.
According to Abijit Ganguly, his joke is about how most of the successful bowlers have been co-incidentally younger brothers. His reasoning being that older brothers have never allowed the younger ones to bat when they used to play cricket in childhood.
In the said episode of 'The Kapil Sharma Show', Kiku Sharda cracks the joke and uses the same examples cited by Abijit Ganguly.
Abijit says that a video of him performing the joke was released about two weeks ago and 'got a decent amount of traction'. He also claimed that he has been performing this particular joke for three years now.
Read Abijit Ganguly's entire Facebook post:
"Important - Lifting of Joke/Plagiarism by The Kapil Sharma Show
Please share this so that it reaches the folks at The Kapil Sharma's Show or Sony Entrainment Television.
I had released a stand-up bit on Youtube and FB on ‘having an elder brother’ around two weeks back. One of the jokes in the routine is an observational joke on how from from Kapil Dev to Zaheer Khan (citing some other names, such as Harbhajan Singh, Srinath, Kumble) all successful Indian bowlers have been co-incidentally younger brothers, leading to the punch of ‘Do you realise how weird it is that India’s bowling strength depends on the fact that elder brothers never let younger brothers ever bat’. I have been doing this bit for over three years now and most people who have ever been to my show in the last three, would have heard this. And modesty aside, many have told me that this was one of their favourite jokes.
Yesterday, at around 10:30 PM, I suddenly got a message from a friend on FB who said that my younger brother bowler joke had been lifted in The Kapil Sharma Show. Someone also tweeted out to me informing me of the same.I was genuinely flustered but still wanted to check before drawing any conclusions. Having checked online, I am disappointed and gutted to see that they have indeed done that.
There I saw Kiku Sharda trying to use my joke (and honestly making a mess of it) while Sidhu and others laughed out in their usual hysterical manner as every cell in my body burnt with rage.
I understand that it’s possible for two people to have the same thought, but this is not that. The fact that right two weeks after I released this bit (which got a decent amount of traction), they just happen to use it while awkwardly trying to use the same examples as premise makes it clear what has happened.
A stand-up bit takes a lot of effort to write and fine-tune. As comedians we strive for originality and after having made all the effort in coming out with a unique observation and building a joke around it, when something like this happens it just deflates you.
We comedians make a living from our self-written jokes. It’s what I depend on to run my house. When you lift a joke I have written, you steal from me. It is as good as stealing my wallet, my watch, laptop or just a goddam robbery at my home.
No Kapil Sharma, plagiarism is not OK. It is not OK to do this. It is not OK to lift a man’s joke and do it on national TV where millions will now think you goddam wrote that joke, and if I am to ever perform it, it comes off as I lifted it.
I am feeling angry, and helpless. I just hope there can be enough noise around this, so that it doesn’t happen anymore with anyone else."
Abijit Ganguly also shared video links as proof to back his claims.
Watch the joke in Abijit Ganguly's show starting at 3:08
Watch the joke in 'The Kapil Sharma Show' starting at 52:15
Neither Kapil Sharma nor any team members or Sony TV channel have given an official statement on the allegations yet.
Kapil Sharma has been in the news for his fight with Sunil Grover, following which Sunil quit 'The Kapil Sharma Show'. On 100th episode of the show, Kapil Sharma thanked all the members of the show, including the ones who have left, and Navjot Singh Sidhu requested them to return to the show.