By Rashmi Bansal

There are many of us who think "I have a book in me". Few ever get around to actually writing it. The very thought of typing out the 70-80,000 words required to fill up 300 odd pages is too daunting. .

So, when I first read about Kaavya Viswanathan's How Opal Mehta, got kissed, got wild and got a life getting published, I thought, "Wow".

You talk about teens having a low attention span? Well, here's one kid who proves otherwise.

The half a million dollar advance - yes that was interesting too. But maybe she is a child genius who deserves it!

Note the use of the word deserve. Did Kaavya's work really merit the kind of hype and exposure it was getting?

On April 2, 2006 Debra Pickett, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times noted: "Viswanathan hasn't taken many risks in her debut but she has made a strong start on what promises to be a long and brilliant career".

What's more, her writing was endorsed by Amitav Ghosh — the famous novelist — who is also a visiting professor at Harvard.

Said Ghosh: "At Harvard, there are many, many very fine writers. Her writing has a kind of a pitch-perfect novelist's diction. At her age, that is very unusual."

The fact that it is unusual is what merited the hype and the advance. But now, we learn that there are several passages in Kaavya's book, which were almost identical to passages in a novel published by Megan McAfferty in 2001.

What's more, it is now believed that Kaavya was most likely 'assisted' with writing her novel by 17th Street Productions, a company that specialises in churning out teen fiction.

As "Joe's Dartblog" notes: “The history of the packaging company and the industry indicate that its involvement significantly reduces the chances that the named author actually wrote the book. It's a little like a Hollywood type admitting that a photograph was "touched-up". These days, that means it's someone else's body.”

As the story goes, the counsellor at Kaavya's high school — who happened to be a published author — brought Kaavya's talent for writing to the notice of an agent. Now there are two possible scenarios:

a) Kaavya is actually a gifted writer but her original work was rejected as 'unsaleable'. Hence, 17th Street steps in to assist her with writing the book.

b) Kaavya is actually a hopeless writer but the idea of a 17-year-old Indian-American author is considered 'saleable'. Hence, 17th Street steps in to pretty much write the book.

Either way, Kaavya seems less and less deserving of the money, the attention, the praise.

Her classmates at Harvard were certainly burning up with the coverage Kaavya was getting for Opal Mehta.

I suspect many whispered daal mein kuch kaala hai when they read comments like this by editors at Little Brown & co: "This book is great, the idea is great and her voice is great.She has tremendous talent."

In contrast, a Harvard teaching assistant, writing under the name "mowglisambo" noted on an online forum, "Kaavya was my student last .I was surprised to learn she had written a book, as her writing was awful — I had given her low grades on her papers."

And that is why, it was the Harvard student newspaper —The Crimson — which first broke the story bringing to light the plagiarism aspect of ‘Opal Mehta.’

But then, envy alone could not have engineered this fall. There were skeletons in Kaavya's closet which made it possible.

Easy rise, easy fall

I think this entire episode just goes to show there are no shortcuts in life. Especially in the field of art and literature.

Most 'cult' books have been rejected by several publishers before they saw the light of print. Lord of the Rings was considered too lengthy, too risky. Several publishers rejected Harry Potter — they said it would not 'sell'! Ditto with Frederick Forsyth's Day of the Jackal and Erich Segal's Love Story. Closer home, Chetan Bhagat went through the same before Rupa agreed to publish Five Point Someone.

On the other hand, there is a large market for formula driven books. Case in point: Mills & Boon. Then you had the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series.

The same teen market is now served by companies like 17th Street which cranks out successful series like Sweet Valley High.

Most of these books are ghost-written around a standard set of plots and characters provided by the publisher. Fine — there are people who want to read such books. It's a market and you cater to it.

Cut to Kaavya. Here is an author who is at best taking the standard teen-lit formula and adding to it the exotic tadka of an Indian background . That too, a very watery and palatable-to-the-American public version of it. I mean Hetals and Sheetals I have heard of, but Opal??!

Now you take this author and hype her up to the skies. Sadly enough, the hype seems to work, with Opal Mehta actually making it to the No. 32 on the ‘New York Times Bestseller’ list.

But the novel is selling because of the complete package. The music video as it were to go with the song. The background story ("How young Kaavya got noticed, got rich and got published") adds to the appeal of the Opal Mehta story.

So when Kaavya got busted, it was about more than a few passages being copied. It was about a reading public feeling 'we've been had'.

Usme aisi koi khaas baat hai hi nahin.

At a personal level, I do feel sad for Kaavya. We all make mistakes. And then, have to pay for them. In time, this shall pass. Other avenues will open up for the girl.

But if it's writing that is really her passion, I'm sure Kaavya can exonerate herself by writing the real story behind the Opal Mehta fiasco.

An expose of the seamy underbelly of publishing, of jealousy and intrigue at Harvard and the glee with which she was crucified by the same media which hailed her as a genius less than three weeks ago.

Now that has all the makings of a bestseller.

Will Kaavya Viswanathan get real, get writing and set the record straight?

More importantly, is there some company out there who will dare publish it?

The author is an IIM Ahmedabad graduate, co-founder and editor of the popular youth magazine JAM.