Bolly-copycats are being watched!

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">WASHINGTON: Growing up in Lahore in a family steeped in Bollywood – and its poor cousin Lollywood – Haydur Agha resolutely resisted the subcontinent''s celluloid lure in his teenage years. <br /></div> <div align="left" style="position:relative; left: -2"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" align="left" border="1" width="35.6%"> <colgroup> <col width="100.0%" /> </colgroup> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" f3f3f3=""> <div class="Normal" style="" text-align:="" center=""><span style="" color:="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">ANALYSE THIS: Original or Copy?</span></div> </td> </tr> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" f3f3f3=""> <div class="Normal" style="" text-align:="" center=""><span style="" color:="" ff0000="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">Black:</span><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold=""> Miracle Worker</span><br /><br /><span style="" color:="" ff0000="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">Murder:</span><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold=""> Unfaithful</span><br /><br /><span style="" color:="" ff0000="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">Munnabhai MBBS:</span><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold=""> Patch Adams</span><br /><br /><span style="" color:="" ff0000="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">Aitraz:</span><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold=""> Disclosure</span></div> </td> </tr> </table></div> <div class="Normal">When he arrived in New York in 2001 to study, he found his newly-made South Asian friends in the city equally in thrall of the mush from Mumbai.<br /><br />"Why would you want to watch something that has been plagiarised?" he would ask them, as they soaked up the latest Hindi movies on DVDs and videos.They even had a few fights over whether to watch a Bollywood or Hollywood movie.<br /><br />Last week, having taken a year off from school, Agha, a computer jock, decided to do something about it. He strung together a website, <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">www.bollycat.com</span> that catalogs Bollywood films that have been plagiarised or ''inspired'' by Hollywood flicks.<br /><br />Agha''s site lists more than 100 movies, starting with the critically acclaimed <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Black</span> to the celebrated <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Shree 420</span>, which he says are knock-offs from foreign movies. "They may not be exact copies, but it''s very obvious where the stories come from," Agha said in an interview. "If they are just inspirations, they can at least acknowledge it in the credits."<br /><br />In <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Bollycat</span>''s book, <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Black</span> emerged from a 1962 Oscar-winning classic called <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">The Miracle Worker</span> and <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Shree 420</span>''s inspiration is <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Citizen Kane</span>.<br /><br />Some of the knock-offs are far more brazen. <script language="javascript">doweshowbellyad=0; </script><br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section2"><div class="Normal">In the last couple of years alone, <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Murder</span> took a stab at <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Unfaithful</span>, <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Aitraz</span> revealed the story of <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Disclosure</span>, and <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Munnabhai MBBS</span> was within a heartbeat of <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Patch Adams</span>. Hollywood films that have been milked include <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Fatal Attraction</span> <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">(Jurm) </span>and <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Analyze This (Hum Kise se Kum Nahin).</span><br /></div> <div align="left" style="position:relative; left: -2"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" align="left" border="1" width="35.6%"> <colgroup> <col width="100.0%" /> </colgroup> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" f3f3f3=""> <div class="Normal"><img src="/photo/1029241.cms" alt="/photo/1029241.cms" border="0" /></div> </td> </tr> </table></div> <div class="Normal">Agha acknowledges his idea is inspired by the author Barbara Taylor Bradford''s lawsuit against India''s Sahara TV drama <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Karishma</span> for allegedly stealing the storyline from one of her novels. Within hours of his website going up, people have been bringing to his notice many unknown instances of knock-offs.<br /><br />His being from Pakistan has little to do with his dislike for Bollywood, Agha said in a separate e-mail sent later. His roommate from New Delhi is equally against it and refuses to watch even critically acclaimed films he (Agha) brings sometime.<br /><br />In time, he hopes to evolve <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Bollycats</span> into a broader catalog, perhaps adding a directory of filched songs, and maybe even a <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Hollycat.com</span> some day.<br /><br />Although there have been stray articles about Bollywood''s penchant for plagiarism, Agha feels there has been no effort to put sustained pressure on Bollywood or hold it up to a higher ideal so that it can attain a global standard.<br /><br />"When they start making original movies, I will stop adding films and shut down the site," he says. <script language="javascript">doweshowbellyad=0; </script></div> </div>