I must have
been in Class 7 when I read my first Hindi pulp fiction. It was a novel
named Sile Huye Honth (Sewn Lips). The hero of the novel was
Major Balwant who was a private detective and I had smuggled the thin book out
of Dad's trunk of books. It was supposed to be out of my reach but I managed to
get it out. So, I had to turn to a criminal to get to read my first Hindi detective
novel. The name of the author was Colonel Ranjit but I didn't know that it was
the pen name of Maqbool Jallandhry. I don't remember the names of the members
of Balwant's team. But I remember that he had a dog whose name was Crocodile.
The other thing that I remember very well is the monthly newspaper bill. There was this
bookstall near the bus stand from where I used to take a bus on my way back
from school. Our household newspaper used to come from there. At the beginning
of a month, Dad or Mom would settle the bill for the previous month - which
would be roughly 100 to 120. But the next month, the monthly bill had increased
by ₹400 or so. And I had to plead with Mom to pay off the bill without raising
any alarms.
You must
have already made a guess. So, it was still the days when a Hindi pulp novel
was priced at most at ₹20. It was very rarely that one of those cost ₹25. And I
had managed to raise a bill of ₹400.
Before
talking about the Hindi pulp novels, there's one curious fact you should know.
Though they are popularly known as pocketbooks, so much so that most
publishers have Pocket Book in their name, apart from that first book I had never found any Hindi pulp novel that really fits into my
pocket. Though the dimensions are almost pocket-sized, the thickness is out of
pocket.
So, who
were the authors whose novels were inflating the newspaper bill?
There was Ved Prakash Sharma. He had his
Vijay-Vikaas series – which can be broadly called spy novels though there was
some extra-terrestrial stuff now and then. Those were mostly patriotic works.
See the names of some of the novels from this series: Maati Mere Desh Ki (Soil
of My Country), Tiranga Jhukega Nahi (The Tricolor Will Never Bow). The best
thing in the Vijay-Vikaas novels was the silly banter that Vijay indulges in
to hide his real intentions. Those were some of the funniest monologues I have
read. But his crime novels were something else altogether. Some of them have
created records in Hindi pulp novel history. One of his crime novels Vardi Wala Gunda (Goons in
Uniform) created sales history on the first day of release. If I remember
correctly, his novel Wo Saala Khaddarwala (That Darn Politician) was
priced at ₹50. It was the first Hindi pulp novel to be priced so high. As I
said before, Ved Prakash Sharma had created lots of milestones in the pulp novel
history. Those of you who are Bollywood fan may or may not know that the Akshay
Kumar hit movie Sabse Bada
Khiladi was based on Sharma’s
novel Lallu. There were
few other movies too that were either written by Sharma or based on his novels;
the ones I can remember include the movie Bahu
Maange Insaaf (based on the
novel of the same name) and another Akshay Kumar movie International Khiladi. Some of
his crime or thriller novels include Raam Baan, Kaarigaar, Qateel Ho To Aisa,
Shaakahari Khanjaar. It is impossible for me to recall the names of all the
thrillers, crime or spy novels written by Ved Prakash Sharma.
The next
name I am going to mention is the most recognized name of all Hindi crime,
thriller, detective novel writers: Surendra Mohan Pathak. His novels are
getting translated into English. They are widely popular. Let me try to recall
all the series Pathak writes: Vimal series, Jeet Singh series, Sunil series,
Sudheer series. These are the ones I have read. But there are many more series
he regularly writes. There are also non-series thrillers coming from his pen all
the time. One of the things I remember is that he used to have very informative
forewords for his novels: the forewords talked about detective literature from
other corners of the world.
One
thriller writer that keeps coming up in my mind is Tiger. I don’t remember many
of his novels though I am sure I have read a lot. I remember only two of his
novels. The first one is: Mujhe Janm Do (Give Me Birth). There are two reasons
I remember this. First, the ways the different murders were executed. In one
instance, a doctor in the operation theatre is forced to commit suicide. In
another murder, the barrel of a pistol is manipulated to make a close shot look
like a long-distance shot. But more strikingly, the thriller was based on
illegal abortions of female fetuses. It was an issue that hit me hard. The
other novel of Tiger that I remember is Teesri Kaun (Who is the Third One).
Again, there are two reasons for remembering the novel. One is a scene towards
the beginning of the novel – when few female friends meet at the home of a
friend to celebrate the birthday of the latter. During the night, one of the
friends gets killed. When the police come to investigate, in different rooms of the
building they discover a horde of killing equipment – revolver, knife, poison, etc. It was like a get-together of killers trying to kill each other. It was a
fantastic scene. Then, there was the killer – the third person of the title;
she never lies but the police are unable to identify her till the very end.
There was another novel by Tiger: 13
Saal Ki Budhiya (Old Woman of
13 years); it not just dealt with corruption in the country but also had a few
horrific descriptions of child prostitution. I could never forget that horror.
Tiger was also really adept at creating remarkable characters.
Among the
other Hindi thriller writers I was reading, I can only recall Raj, who was
quite popular at that time. But I can’t remember much about his novels except
the name of one thriller: Miss India Hatyakand (The Murders of Miss India).
Even though
I was quite hung up on these pulp novels, I stopped reading one writer after
another. The reason was quite simple. I started finding the blatant plagiarism
in most of the novels I was reading. In the case of one writer, I found plots
stolen from Hollywood movies including Minority Report, Paycheck, and so on. In the novels of
another popular author, I saw plots lifted from Perry Mason novels and served with minor
variations to Indianize it. The most famous novel series from the same author was about an antihero: a criminal who was betrayed by his life partner and a partner-in-crime and then he starts off on his journey of revenge. Remember Parker by Donald E. Westlake? It was almost the same plot with minimal changes to make it Indian.
So, that was that. The end of my affair with Hindi pulp fiction. Maybe not all of their novels have stolen plots. But after finding these dark origins of the novels of some of the authors, I just lost interest in reading any of the authors any more.
So, that was that. The end of my affair with Hindi pulp fiction. Maybe not all of their novels have stolen plots. But after finding these dark origins of the novels of some of the authors, I just lost interest in reading any of the authors any more.
Some years
later I got lucky because some of the novels of Ibn-e-Safi were translated and
published in Hindi, and I became a fan of this long-dead writer. His were very
short books but they were great reads.
