Archive · 12 Sep 2026
Amitabha Bagchi Debates Originality, Borrowing, and Literary Reverence
Asha'ar Najmi studied Khalid Javed’s novels and found similarities to many earlier Western works.
This made Najmi question how original Javed’s writing really was.
Amitabha Bagchi says writers often build on books, films, songs, and stories that came before them.
He explains that this is different from copying someone’s words or music exactly.
In school and academic writing, presenting another person’s idea as your own is usually considered plagiarism.
In literature, however, old ideas can be reshaped into something new.
Bagchi says even famous ancient stories probably came from earlier traditions.
He believes readers should not treat writers as perfect heroes.
Instead, readers should judge whether a work fits its setting and time and whether it moves them.
Asha'ar Najmi’s Hindi essay traces ideas in Khalid Javed’s novels to Western writers, thinkers, graphic novelists, and filmmakers.
Amitabha Bagchi argues that literary borrowing differs from academic plagiarism and does not automatically destroy a novelist’s reputation.
Bagchi says Najmi’s disappointment may reflect an unrealistic belief that admired writers must be completely original.
The article distinguishes direct copying, such as borrowed melodies, from transforming earlier ideas through a new style, setting, and context.
Bagchi calls for reading writers generously, without hero-worship or disdain, and judging literature by how truthfully it reflects its time and place.
- Who
- Novelist Amitabha Bagchi discusses Urdu novelist Asha'ar Najmi’s criticism of Khalid Javed and the broader question of literary originality.
- What
- The article examines whether borrowing ideas, settings, or influences from earlier works is plagiarism, inspiration, or legitimate intertextual writing.
- When
- The article’s publication date is not stated; it first appeared on Amitabha Bagchi’s Substack.
- Where
- The debate concerns Najmi’s essay published in a Hindi journal, while the article also discusses Urdu, Hindi, and English literary contexts.
- Why
- Bagchi responds to Najmi’s claim that readers may have been misled about the originality of Khalid Javed’s work and argues against excessive reverence for writers.
Borrowing Undermines Literary Originality
Borrowing Can Become New Literature
How borrowing should be judged
Borrowing Undermines Literary Originality
Asha'ar Najmi argues that extensive similarities between Khalid Javed’s ideas and earlier Western works can disappoint readers who regarded Javed as highly original and may amount to defrauding them.
Borrowing Can Become New Literature
Amitabha Bagchi argues that fiction has always developed through connections with earlier books, films, oral traditions, and other cultural works, so influence alone does not destroy a writer’s reputation.
Standards for originality
Borrowing Undermines Literary Originality
Readers may expect authors to acknowledge or avoid presenting recognizable ideas from other writers as entirely their own.
Borrowing Can Become New Literature
Bagchi says the standard of total originality is so high that it could implicate even canonical works such as the Mahabharata, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the Odyssey.
Reader response
Borrowing Undermines Literary Originality
Najmi’s anger reflects the loss of an idealized image of Javed and the sense that an innocent reading public was misled.
Borrowing Can Become New Literature
Bagchi believes writers should be read without hero-worship or disdain, with attention to how effectively their work transforms influences and fits its time and place.
- Central question
- What constitutes originality in fiction, especially when authors transform ideas or settings from earlier works?
- Critic discussed
- Asha'ar Najmi traced connections in Khalid Javed’s novels to figures including Thomas Bernhard, Émile Zola, Neil Gaiman, Kafka, Bachelard, Peter Greenaway, and Roman Polanski.
- Novel at issue
- Khalid Javed’s Nematkhana was translated into English as Paradise of Food.
- JCB Prize
- Paradise of Food won the JCB Prize in 2022; Amitabha Bagchi served on that year’s five-member jury.
- Bagchi’s related prize
- Bagchi’s novel Half the Night Is Gone won the DSC Prize in 2019.
- Musical example
- The article says the melody of “Ye hai Bombay meri jaan” has been identified as closely resembling “Clementine.”
- Bagchi’s conclusion
- Literature should be read with generosity and evaluated partly by whether it is true to its time and place.