Why Manoj Shukla became Manoj Muntashir, copying work after work on way to Adipurush

Manoj Muntashir has made it to national headlines and Twitter hashtags, thanks to his dialogues for the latest Ramayana adaptation. Being described as “pedestrian dialogues”, Muntashir’s writing has come under fire from offended Hindus and has also entertained trolling from meme pages.

ALSO READ: Adipurush dialogues being changed, says writer Manoj Muntashir day after defending his tapori words

Muntashir has also proven to change his words very conveniently; as eight months ago, the lyricist and dialogue-writer was very confidently asserting that Adipurush is a faithful adaptation of the Ramayana. Now, after gaining much post-release flak, Muntashir is telling media outlets that Adipurush is merely inspired by Ramayana and it shouldn’t be seen as an adaptation. 

With some extremist Hindus even asking for his arrest (and in some cases, death), Muntashir has sought special security from Mumbai Police. While he has turned into India’s favourite person to hate at the moment, Muntashir has had a controversial career be it as a lyricist or a poet. 

ALSO READ: Just how many changes did Adipurush make to Ramayana to get #BoycottAdipurush trending?

Why Manoj Shukla became Manoj Muntashir

Born as Manoj Shukla, the lyricist adopted Muntashir as his pen name when he was a Class 10 student. Muntashir, which translates to “winner” or “disruptor” in Urdu, was Shukla’s pseudonym of choice just because it was “unique” and he heard the word play in an old Hindi song on the radio. 

The Teri Mitti lyricist who always seems to glimmer with self-obsession told The New Indian Express in 2016, “The best part is that I am the only Muntashir who has ever existed in the world of poetry. So till date, my pen name stands unique.”

He later added in a radio interview that he also chose Muntashir as his birth name Shukla didn't carry much weight. 

Teri Mitti obsession and a sore loser 

Manoj Muntashir established himself as a Bollywood lyricist in the 2010s as he wrote hit songs like Galliyan (Ek Villain) and Tere Sang Yaara (Rustom). Muntashir’s fame peaked with Kesari’s patriotic song Teri Mitti, a song that he never fails to mention next to his name in any and all interviews. Even his Twitter bio references the song’s lyrics!

Despite getting enough praise (and singing his own praises for it), Muntashir’s song lost Best Lyrics at the 2020 Filmfare Awards to Ankur Tiwari and Divine for their Gully Boy rap track Apna Time Aayega. This defeat affected Muntashir to such an extent that he vowed to never attend any industry award show ever. 

Like every time, Muntashir revealed his intentions via Twitter. The tweet reads as a letter to the awards with Muntashir stating that he will never be able to ever write a lyric like, “Tu kahti thi tera chaand hu main aur chaand humesha rehta hai” (roughly translates to “You said that I am your moon and the moon stays forever”).

Well, Teri Mitti has some way better lines than that one!

How the Manoj Muntashir plagiarism row started

Following his success in the film industry, Muntashir also penned a Hindi poetry anthology titled Meri Fitrat Hai Mastana. But the book made it to the news for the wrong reasons, with readers pointing out similarities between his poem “Mujhe call karna” and the creation of a vaguely-known author named Robert J Lavery. The writer just has a 2007 poetry-prose book named Love Lost: Love Found. 

Goodreads mentions a quote from the book, a poem in which Lavery asks his beloved to not cry and how he is just one call away. Muntashir’s poem aped the exact same concept and even the sequence of events, merely translating Lavery’s words in Hindi. 

Check out Muntashir’s poem first.

And now here’s Lavery’s work. 

As expected, Muntashir took to Twitter again to clear his name (this time with a 17-minute-long YouTube video). While it seemed like he was getting defensive, he ends up spilling the beans on how all of his work is “inspired”. To put it in his own words, 

He went on to compare himself to the likes of AR Rahman, mentioning that Rahman didn’t credit Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s Vande Mataram while performing Maa Tujhe Salam just because Chatterjee’s work is in the public domain (after all, it’s the National Song of the country). 

Adding that Lavery’s work is in the public domain, Muntashir admitted, “I interpreted it in my way.”  After all the fiery rant, he did end the video by saying that he will add Lavery’s name in the footnotes in a revised edition of his book. 

What else has Manoj Muntashir plagiarised?

Some can call it plagiarism or just mere inspiration, Manoj Muntashir in his YouTube video didn’t just admit to being inspired by Lavery’s poem but he also cited the inspirations behind most of his other works. These include 

• Urdu ghazal poet Momin Khan Momin’s lines inspiring a paragraph in Teri Galliyan
• Firakh Gorakhpuri’s couplets inspiring Tere Sang Yaar

He also added that Teri Mitti has been translated numerous times and he doesn’t get enough credit as the original writer. But then again, Teri Mitti itself is not original either. A ghazal by poet Shakeel Azmi began doing the rounds on social media as people realised that "Teri mitti mei mil jaawa gul banke khil jaawa" sounds a lot similar to Azmi's "Marke mitti mei milunga, khaad ho jaaunga mai". 

Two years ago, Dainik Bhaskar reported Azmi as saying that Muntashir's lyrics are very similar to his work even though he didn't express any disappointment against Muntashir. And this was the song that Muntashir was so aggressively defending during Filmfare!

As for Adipurush, Muntashir might have gone a bit too original for the flak he has been getting! Maybe, he should have stuck to Valmiki’s Ramayana only this time.