Hours after Aamir Khan Productions tweeted a video on seeking forgiveness on Samvatsari, the last day of the Jain holy event Paryushan, for having hurt anyone intentionally or unintentionally, allegations have emerged that the video may have been plagiarised and copied from elsewhere.
A Twitter user shared a YouTube link of the same video posted by one Heena Jain in September 2021, alleging that one of the top Bollywood production houses had resorted to plagiarism by sharing a copied video.
Why @AKPPL_Official ?
— Lala 🇮🇳 (@FabulasGuy) September 1, 2022
Community members forced to delete or copied video tha to delete https://t.co/bPvNwoB9ko pic.twitter.com/yY12KoM5nf
However, the same video could be found on a YouTube channel hosted by a user named Heena Jain, who had posted the video on 12 September 2021, close to 12 months before the Laal Singh Chaddha actor’s production house shared it on Twitter. Moreover, it’s also likely that the video could be much older and copyrighted to someone else.
Even so, the video had already drawn backlash online on the virtue of its poor quality and spelling errors by a production house that touted itself to be one of the leading film-makers in the country and owned by a man regarded as a “perfectionist” by his sycophantic industry peers.
At around four seconds when the voiceover says ‘hum sab insaan hai’ (we are all humans), the text reads ‘hum sab insane hai’ meaning, we all are insane (crazy). There are awkward emojis which make the apology, which is supposed to be heartfelt appear way too trivial. Even towards the end where the voiceover is supposed to seek ‘kshama’ (forgiveness), it asks for ‘shama’ (??).
Aamir Khan Productions posted the video earlier yesterday but deleted it later. After some time, they posted the video again. However, the video still had some errors like “Kshama” which means ‘forgiveness’ is still referred to as “Shama”.
Aamir Khan Productions shares a video seeking forgiveness, actor had recently faced box office failure for ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’
Though the video seeking apology came on the occasion of Samsavtsari, the day when Jains around the world forgive and seek forgiveness from all the living beings for hurting them unknowingly or knowingly through their words, actions or deeds. A yearly, elaborate penitential retreat called “samvatsari pratikramana” is performed on this day by Jains to expiate the sins committed in the past year.
However, the apology video also coincided with the disastrous failure of Laal Singh Chaddha at the Indian Box office as the audience chose to give a pass to the Aamir Khan flick over the latter’s controversial statements and stances. Ahead of its release, Laal Singh Chaddha faced a massive boycott campaign on social media, with users vowing that they would not watch the movie because Aamir Khan had insulted Hindu Gods in his movie PK, his other controversial stands, among other things. Consequently, Laal Singh Chaddha became Aamir Khan’s lowest opener in 13 years, with theatre owners cancelling shows because of low occupancy.
