If you happen to be in the US nowadays, it’s hard not to have read or heard about Kaavya Viswanathan. She was the talking point of my first phone call with a Mysore-connected friend, Mr B R Ramaprasad, in Millington, NJ, who is familiar to the MyMysore folk, and with whom I have been in e-mail touch for several months.

Though the girl was guilty, said Mr Prasad, it was difficult not to sympathize with her. Kaavya, a Harvard going teenager, had become a literary sensation at 17, when she pulled a six-figure book advance and secured a two-book contract from Little, Brown that published Kaavya’s debut novel, ‘Opal Mehta Got Kissed. Got Wild, and Got a life’. Within weeks of it publication Kaavya became a national disgrace when she stood exposed to  plagiarism charge.

Is this the end of the road for her?  “We have here a forgiving society,” said Mr Prasad. Another long-time US resident, Mr Narendra Reddy, a Osmania alumni, now a US businessman and Republican Party activist, reckoned Kaavya couldn’t be written off and America always gave a second chance to the deserving. My own thoughts are Bollywood might get interested in the kaavya Viswanthan story. I have in mind someone such as Karan Johar or Nagesh Kukanoor…Look up NRI Pulse blog.

GVK in San Ramon, Calif.