Popular Malayalam director Kalavoor Ravikumar on Thursday alleged that another director has scripted a film based on one of his short stories.

Ravikumar has alleged that director Sajid Yahiya's upcoming movie titled 'Mohanlal' is based on this short story titled ‘Mohanlaline Enikkippo Bhayankara Pediyanu’ (I am scared of Mohanlal). Sajid however, has denied this.

He also alleged that Sajid never approached him to seek copyright permissions.

In the 10-year-old short story ‘Mohanlaline Enikippo Bhayankara Pediyanu’ a woman is the protagonist, who tries to get her husband to behave like the actor Mohanlal.  

Ravikumar says that he learned of this from friends in the industry about a week ago and has sought the Film Employees Federation of Kerala’s intervention.

Speaking to The News Minute, Ravikumar was scathing about alleged plagiarism of ideas.

“Do filmmakers believe that they can copy another’s work, tweak it a bit and pass it off as their own idea? It is essential that people in the industry have respect for each other’s work,” he said.

He said that the short story was first published in Kerala Kaumudi daily, after which two editions of a book by the same name were released. The story was familiar to many in the industry, with actor Mohanlal himself having read it, Ravikumar said.

“It is not that I would have refused to let Sajid base his film on my story. I understand if he wanted to work with a different script writer, but the basic thing to do was to approach me first, which he didn't,” Ravikumar said.

He claims that Suneesh Varanad, the scripwriter of Sajid’s film admitted to him that the script was indeed based on his story.

“Suneesh told me that he had raised this issue with Sajid when they began to work on the project, but Sajid was not ready to address the matter,” Ravikumar claims.

Suneesh however, said that he told Ravikumar the exact opposite, that Sajid’s film had nothing to do with Ravikumar’s story.

Sajid Yahiya too denied that the two were similar. “My film is about a woman who takes birth in the interval of a Mohanlal film, and goes on to see the actor in every man she comes across,” he was quoted as saying. 

In July, scriptwriter Pradip M Nair had alleged that an upcoming film by Santhosh Echikkanam with Vineeth Sreenivasan in the lead, had similarities with his own movie starring actor Prithviraj.