Shahrukh Khan accused of being a copy cat!

Shahrukh Khan’s struggle stories are known to all. Recently Shahrukh Khan made a speech at the All India Management Association (AIMA) conference held in September which was noticed to be similar to author of the ‘Harry Potter’ series and the best selling novel ‘The Cuckoo’s Calling’, JK Rowling’s speech at Harvard University in 2008. This cropped up only when a Bangalore-based social media consultant Agratha Dinakaran noticed this apparent plagiarism of Rowling’s speech by Shahrukh in his blog.
In her speech, Rowling said that poverty was not an ‘ennobling experience’. She further said, “Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships.” Shahrukh Khan has directly lifted words and phrases from her speech.

He exclaimed,”Let me tell you, poverty is not an ennobling experience at all. Poverty entails fear and stress and sometimes, depression. I’ve seen my parents go through it many times – it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships.”

JK Rowling further said, “Happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life,though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone`s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.”

Taking a cue from the above lines, Shah Rukh Khan said: “I’d like to tell you all that life is not just a checklist of acquisitions,  attainments and fulfilments. Your qualifications and CVs don’t matter, your jobs don’t matter. Instead, life is difficult and complicated and beyond your control, and to know that with humility, respecting your failures will help you survive its vicissitudes.”

Now we wonder who to blame for the blatant plagiarism – SRK or the one who really wrote the speech for him!