In July 2008, our college gave us a simple assignment of management lessons from our ancient scriptures; I wrote about Ramayana. Although the assignment was never submitted but it got published here, as Management and Ramayana. The post became popular and on Google it was once the top result.
Exactly after one year, in July 2009 I came across another blog with a post by the same name. Nothing unusual, just the content was also the same as mine; word to word, phrase to phrase. The moment I saw that post my first reaction was, what the f! But the next moment I was excited and then happy. Even am getting plagiarized, that’s something to feel proud of [I don’t know why writers make such a fuss when they are plagiarized; you should feel happy. You are good enough to be copied]. Immediately I wrote Management and Ramayana II.
But the story of plagiarism doesn’t end here. Later I found one guy [who has written a comment on my post] has written my post in comment at many places [I wonder whose post is in my comment? Smart chap].
Then in my third semester, the same assignment of management lessons from scriptures reappeared, this time only in form of a Presentation. The moment I saw it, I knew for this one I need not to worry, I have all the material with me.
On the D-day as expected many had taken Ramayana as their subject of research and boy what research they had to offer. It came to me as no surprise when many had used my post as reference for their presentation [well actually it was more than reference plus no one ever mentions their references when giving presentation in our college]. Of all those I have my favorites. The bronze medal, group had all the examples which I used in my first post [top Google result, gave all the stuff you need what else could you ask for; to hell with the research]. The second best was the one with examples from both the posts [he actually bothered to navigate the site and read the other post as well]. But my personal favorite the gold medalist, he simply read out both of my posts as one single story; without any rephrasing or restructuring [why to bother? There is all you need, in such great fashion what is only required is to read it in front of the teacher].
When I asked him from where he got the material, very casually he said Google [that was not Google; that was my site]. I actually liked the guy; just that his way of reading was not good and it was my idea to do so; he just did it before me. When my turn came, I had no other option but to repeat what he had just said [although I did tried to make some last minute changes, but they seldom help]. The teacher later commented looks like you both got inspired from the same place; I did not have anything else to say.
You know what the funniest thing is? My post Management and Ramayana is not in the top results anymore, but the guy who copied it to his blog is there these days. Although Management and Ramayana II is still there but I wonder for how long? Till then I plan to write another one [and get plagiarized].
