Hindi Pulps

Although the pulps in America effectively died out in the fifties, their spirit still lives on in the world. Previously, I've looked at Japanese light novels and Chinese YY novels. The pulp spirit is not contained to just East Asia, as Paul Bishop dives into the world of the Hindi and Tamal pulps over at Bibliorati:

Known as the father of Hindi pulp crime fiction, Surender Mohan Pathak has written close to 300 novels, including 60+ standalone thrillers, 120+ adventures of crime reporter Sunil, 22+ investigations of the Philosopher Detective Sudhir, and 42 of his anti-hero Vimal crime thrillers.

While working a full-time job in Delhi with Indian Telephone Industries, Pathak began his writing career in the early 1960s translating Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels and the works of James Hadley Chase into the Hindi language. His first original story, The Man 57 Years Old, was published in 1959, followed by his first full length novel, featuring his crime reporter series character Sunil, in 1963.
The character Sunil is a suave and principled investigative journalist working for the daily newspaper Blast. He lives in the metropolitan city of Rajnagar located on the coastline. Both the newspaper and the city are fictional, much the same as the city of Isola in Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct novels.
Sunil has a weakness for damsels in distress, who seem to drop into his life with the regularity of the rising sun. In his 30s, Sunil is willing to go to any lengths in pursuit of justice. He is aided by his best friend, nightclub owner Ramakant Malhotra. Every strong character requires an equally strong nemesis. In Sunil’s case it is iron-rodded, incorruptible Inspector Prabhudayal, who is in charge of the homicide division of the Rajnagar Police.

Pulp fiction has long been fascinated with the full breadth of the Asian continent as setting and source for its mysteries. It is fascinating to see how Asia reveres and reinterprets the pulps.