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Frontlist | Sarabhai vs Sarabhai writer slams its Pakistani version

Frontlist | Sarabhai vs Sarabhai writer slams its Pakistani version
on Dec 17, 2020

Sarabhai vs Sarabhai is one of the most loved sitcoms in Indian television and still has a huge fan base. The show was created by Jamnadas Majethia and Aatish Kapadia while it was directed by Deven Bhojani. Sarabhai vs Sarabhai stars Satish Shah, Ratna Pathak Shah, Sumeet Raghavan, Rupali Ganguly and Rajesh Kumar in the lead roles. Now, after many years of the show going off-air, it's back in the news. Aatish Kapadia who is the writer of the sitcom took to his Facebook page and revealed that an 'unofficial' remake of Sarabhai vs Sarabhai is currently on air in Pakistan. He called it a 'daylight robbery' and also wrote that he cringed while seeing the actors on that show perform badly. The note by Aatish read as The morning began with a forwarded video link. I opened it and saw a 'word to word' 'frame to frame' unofficial remake of our show 'Sarabhai vs Sarabhai'. By someone from our not so amicable neighbours, to our west. It has been shamelessly put on a free video streaming platform and the actors have performed my written word so badly, (they've even added their own pedestrian bit) that I cringed!

I mean getting inspired and having made a show on the lines of Sarabhai vs Sarabhai is understandable. Khichdi had inspired many makers to come up with a show on the lines of Khichdi. The problem of course was that they didn't understand the logic behind creating those illogical people. Similarly, inspired versions of Sarabhai have got it wrong, because they thought it was a show only about class conflict; which was just one aspect of it. Written by using inversion as a tool. But this blatant copy?!?!?! My god, it's appalling. My request to my friends is to NOT give that show 'views', by chance you'll come across that daylight robbery. So much for copyright! And I don't mean the technical copyright. I mean the shameful lack of conscience that those thieves displayed while lifting the show, lock stock and barrel! Source: DNA