Is Laapataa Ladies lifted from French filmmaker Fabrice Bracq’s 2019 short Burqa City or Anand Mahadevan’s Ghoonghat Ke Pat Khol? Let’s unpack the controversy of inspiration, adaptation, and outright copying!
India’s official entry to the Oscars, Laapataa Ladies, directed by Kiran Rao and produced by Aamir Khan, has found itself in the middle of a plagiarism controversy. Lauded across the country for its refreshing simplicity, rooted storytelling, and standout performances by Chhaya Kadam, Sparsh Shrivastava, Pratibha Ranta, and Nitanshi Goel, the film was celebrated not just for its cinematic merit but also for its empowering narrative about freeing women from age-old subjugation masked as tradition. It even stood tall against hypermasculine narratives like Animal, offering a more grounded, liberating perspective. But what if this powerful story isn't as original as we thought?
The internet was the first to point fingers. Sharp-eyed viewers drew comparisons between Laapataa Ladies and two earlier works: Anand Mahadevan’s 1999 Doordarshan film Ghoonghat Ke Pat Khol and Fabrice Bracq’s 2019 French short film Burqa City. Both films share a core premise with Rao’s film—a newlywed groom mistakenly brings home the wrong bride due to a mix-up caused by veils, a narrative device rooted in visual anonymity and mistaken identity.
Bracq’s Burqa City revolves around a man in the Middle East who, after a mix-up due to identical burqas, embarks on a journey to find his real bride. Along the way, he encounters a police officer who mocks his predicament while the woman who ends up in his home tries to escape an abusive marriage. The tone, situations, and even character arcs—especially those centering on female liberation—bear an uncanny resemblance to Laapataa Ladies. Similarly, Mahadevan’s Ghoonghat Ke Pat Khol, which aired on national television in 1999, presents a rural setting where a bride is mistakenly taken home due to a veil-related mix-up at a railway station—an element Laapataa Ladies heavily leans on. The thematic parallels and narrative devices shared among these films go beyond surface-level similarities, raising the question: when does inspiration cross over into plagiarism?
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The controversy deepened when both Fabrice Bracq and Biplab Goswami, the credited writer of Laapataa Ladies, addressed the matter publicly. Fabrice, in a detailed interview with IFP, openly pointed out the visual and narrative similarities, referencing many identical scenes in Laapataa Ladies, including a burqa-clad woman confusing a man as a hat tip to his film. In response, Biplab clarified the timeline of his submission to the Screenwriters Association, asserting the originality of his work. Fabrice accepted Biplab’s explanation with grace, acknowledging the overlap but treating it as a possible homage. He even hinted at the possibility of future collaboration, citing the shared message of women’s emancipation as a common goal.
This incident isn’t isolated, though. The motif of mistaken brides can be traced back to Rabindranath Tagore’s 1906 novella Noukadubi (The Boat-Wreck), in which a man unknowingly brings home the wrong bride due to an accident and the veil concealing her identity. Tagore’s story has inspired several adaptations over the decades—from Rituparno Ghosh’s film of the same name to Ramanand Sagar’s Ghunghat, and even Milan starring Dilip Kumar. If we’re tracing the origin of the story, perhaps credit belongs not to contemporary filmmakers, but to Tagore—and beyond him, to Shakespearean themes of mistaken identities and comedic errors.
Adaptation is not a crime—storytelling has always thrived on reinterpretation. Stories move from book to screen, stage to screen, and sometimes even between cultures. Originality in the strictest sense is debatable, especially when ideas exist in the ether of collective consciousness. But while it’s acceptable—even expected—for artists to draw inspiration, it becomes problematic when credit isn’t given, especially when the resemblance runs deeper than a shared premise and seeps into the exact composition of scenes, characters, and plot progression.
The real question here isn't just whether Laapataa Ladies is a copy, but whether it should have acknowledged its inspirations more transparently—especially given the acclaim it received, the national pride it evoked, and the global platform it was given during its Oscars campaign. For many, discovering the similarities post-celebration of Laapataa Ladies felt like a breach of trust. Yet this also offers a moment of reflection. How do we define originality in art? Where does adaptation end and appropriation begin? And how can creators better document and credit the lineage of the stories they bring to life?
What this moment underscores is not just the need to protect intellectual property but to respect storytelling legacies. It also highlights the importance of difficult conversations—like those between Fabrice and Biplab—about creative overlap, credit, and accountability. While cinema is meant to echo universal emotions and ideas, when too many echoes sound like a replica, it’s not just coincidence—it becomes a grey area that deserves scrutiny. Perhaps the most honest thing that filmmakers can do in such situations is to simply acknowledge the works that may have subconsciously (or consciously) informed their own. After all, homage is only sincere when it is admitted.
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