KaavyaBorn in Chennai, India and raised in Scotland before her parents migrated to North America – This is the story of a 19 year old Non Resident Indian (NRI) Harvard sophomore called Kaavya Viswanathan. The teenager shot to fame in the ‘chick lit’ world when she was paid $500,000 for a two-book contract with the publishers Little, Brown. Following that, she reportedly got a movie deal from Dreamworks in California. The first of the two books, titled How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life, hit the stands recently.

Now for the interesting bit. On April 21, 2006, The Harvard Crimson, Harvard’s own news publication reported striking similarities in the novel to two of Megan McCafferty’s best-selling novels (2001), Sloppy Firsts (2001) and Second Helpings (2003), published by Crown, a division of Random House (and I thought Sean Preston Federline was an amusing name!).

Consider this for similarity – On page 6 of McCafferty’s first novel, she writes: “Sabrina was the brainy Angel. Yet another example of how every girl had to be one or the other: Pretty or smart. Guess which one I got. You’ll see where it’s gotten me.”

Page 39 of Kaavya’s novel reads, “Moneypenny was the brainy female character. Yet another example of how every girl had to be one or the other: smart or pretty. I had long resigned myself to category one, and as long as it got me to Harvard, I was happy. Except, it hadn’t gotten me to Harvard. Clearly, it was time to switch to category two.”

Another striking example – At some point in the first novel, McCafferty writes: "Though I used to see him sometimes at Hope's house, Marcus and I had never, ever acknowledged each other's existence before. So I froze, not knowing whether I should (a) laugh (b) say something (c) ignore him and keep on walking."I chose a brilliant combo of (a) and (b)."

"'Uh, yeah. Ha. Ha. Ha.' I turned around and saw that Marcus was smiling at me."

Kaavya’s main character, Opal, bumps into her love interest, Sean Whalen, and the two spy on one of the school’s popular girls. Kaavya writes: "Though I had been to school with him for the last three years, Sean Whalen and I had never acknowledged each other's existence before. I froze, unsure of (a) what he was talking about and (b) what I was supposed to do about it. I stared at him." 'Flat irons,' he said. 'At least seven flat irons for that hair.

''Ha, yeah. Uh, ha. Ha.' I looked at the floor and managed a pathetic combination of laughter and monosyllables, then remembered that the object of our mockery was his former best friend. "I looked up and saw that Sean was grinning."

In the first statement regarding Viswanathan, who is majoring in English, Robert Mitchell, director of communications for Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, told The New York Times on Tuesday: 'Our policies apply to work submitted to courses. Nevertheless, we expect Harvard students to conduct themselves with integrity and honesty at all times.' How lame is that? Does that serve a purpose? He is actually contradicting himself.

Further ‘information gathering’, as Mitchell calls it, and not ‘investigation’ as Bloomberg reported, revealed that there are at least 29 such instances of similarities between the novels. How dumb can one be? And it really beats me to imagine how on earth she made it to Harvard. Apparently she is majoring in English Literature. Talk about living an ironic life!

Only time will tell what happens of her and her chick-lit career. As of now, the publication houses are negotiating the issue since this has hit McCafferty hard. As they say, no news is bad news! The controversy is apparently helping sales of the book, the Globe discovered. On Monday it was ranked 178 on Amazon.com; on Wednesday it was 68. It has reportedly sold about 5,000 copies across the United States. The plagiarism, if I may call it, has devastated McCafferty. Reportedly, she is 'not sleeping, not eating.'

Things are not smooth for Kaavya as well. She has taken a few days off from Harvard after making a brief appearance on the NBC television channel's popular Today show, telling its hosts: 'When I was writing, I genuinely believed each word was my own.' (Yeah right! And we were just born yesterday!). You made it to Harvard. That in itself should warrant a better excuse. Ay! Ay! Ay! The shame it brings on the hallowed name. No wonder the publishers of McCafferty’s novels slammed her lame apology. But I’m not complaining. It just goes on to strengthen my innate belief that humankind never ceases to amaze!