Imitation, they say, is the sincerest form of flattery. So - since so many people, students and teachers alike - pass off my writing as their own, I guess I should feel flattered. I have lately been told by some pupils of mine (and I checked) that someone has flattered me even more by opening a fake account in my name on Facebook, using the same photo as I use on my real profile.
'How did you know it wasn't really me?' I asked them. 'Well, Sir, you don't send or grant friend requests to schoolgirls, do you?' they said charmingly. Clever, I must say...
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5 comments:
So one day they can't string two sentences together, and the next day they're passing your writing off as their own. I would have laughed if I could.
The Facebook freak should be whacked. I don't know how Facebook works but does it have a profile page where folks can fill out personal information as well? Did the impostor have the nerve to fill out a page of information as well? Pretending to be you while trying to befriend schoolgirls?!
I've heard famous people facing similar problems....egad...
Take care.
Shilpi
Oh, this impostor 'freak', I believe, is a local teenager herself: one of the type who now number in the millions that I write about, well-off, pampered, silly, and having too much idle time on their hands, the sort which, if they had been married off or put to earn their own living, would have greatly benefited both themselves and society, if only we elders knew better. And I am locally famous enough, I guess, to merit the attention of 'identity-thieves' like this one - the type who hope that they will quickly acquire a lot of 'friends' on Facebook if they impersonate Suvro-sir, and that would be quite a lark. You are a sociologist: don't you think this type merits a case study in socially conditioned juvenile dementia? (well, not only juvenile, either: I know of at least one elderly teacher in your ex-school who is on Facebook by and large to make 'friends' of schoolboys...)
Once "in the course of human events" in Kota, it became necessary for me to win an argument(I was fighting an already lost battle!), I very solemnly said that Sir and I had a conversation on the same topic and my arguments were inherently Sir's.
And my friends somehow started molding their opinions to suit mine!
Sir, that wasn't exactly plagiarism, was it?
Dear Sir,
It's really pathetic to know that what some people can do in order to gain popularity. They have no sense of genuineness. They don't even take the least trouble to write something on their own. It really amazes me to see that how you ridicule them- and they ought to feel ashamed after that.
Regards,
Soham
No, Amit, that's certainly not plagiarism. Plagiarism happens when you don't acknowledge sources. By the way, your story flatters me too: I should have thought, rather, that the very fact that you were using my arguments would have turned your friends against you! Maybe more people respect me than I know?
Soham, the ability to feel ashamed is a very high and rare virtue... and most certainly it is not taught in the great majority of families and schools these days. These children typically have parents who cannot see what is there to be ashamed of about peeing by the roadside or shouting in hotel lobbies, so long as they are engineers and step out of fancy new cars to do it!
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