Was Udtha Punjab copied from a British Novel?

on Sep 28, 2016

In a shocking piece of news, it is being speculated by various websites and media houses whether the 2016 movie Udta Punjab was based on High Society, a 2002 novel by Ben Elton. The biggest clue lay in the title, the article claimed: the word “high” being translated into Hindi as “udta” and Punjab replacing “society”. “I don’t have anything to say. I am completely shocked by the same, haven’t read the book,” Anurag Kashyap, one of the producers said. All three characters bear a strong resemblance to the three lead characters in Udta Punjab. Tommy Singh (Shahid Kapoor) is a pop star with a history of substance abuse. Mary Jane (Alia Bhatt) is a runaway who is coerced into drug use and abused as a sex slave. Sartaj Singh (Diljit Dosanjh) is a police officer who files a report indicting himself and his colleagues for their involvement in drug smuggling from Pakistan into India. A report claims that Udta Punjab scriptwriter Sudip Sharma has strongly denied the allegations but he did confess that he had read the novel. While another report has an elongated description of the similarities, now its being doubted if the film was an original idea at all.