Daylight Robbery (novel)
Encyclopedia
Daylight Robbery is a thriller novel written by Surender Mohan Pathak
, a Hindi
writer from Delhi
, India.Originally published in 1980 by Shanu Paperbacks, it was translated into English by Sudarshan Purohit and published by Blaft Publications, Chennai
, India in 2010.
It is the 8th novel in the Vimal series, and revolves around the robbery of a payroll van in Agra
. The novel is unique in the sense that this is the first time Vimal engages in a crime for his own personal benefit (till now all he did was under threat of other hard-core criminals). Dawarkanath, an aged gambler form Agra, tells him of a great artist, a plastic surgeon called Dr. Earl Slater, who would operate only on wanted Indian criminals (for an amazingly high fee, of course). If Vimal (actual name Sardar Surender Singh Sohal), a wanted criminal in several Indian states and NCR, can get a new face, he can live safe from both the law and its breakers. That's what pulls him in Dwarkanath's amazingly inhuman scheme - it would involve crashing the cash-carrying armoured van "like a piano accordion" ! along with the driver and security guard. The officer in charge of Ratanakar Steel Mill, whose weak point is his shamelessly materialistic wife, is blackmailed to give-in a very complicated machination, exploiting his love for gambling. The team somehow pulls off the thing but things (as they always happen to poor Vimal) go wrong - Dwarkanath dies of heart attack, the young and naive Kooka (another cooperator) loses both money and life, the money goes back to where it belongs and Vimal is left with empty pockets, his dream of a new face shattered and a long dark road full of underworld adventures stretching in front of him.
Surender Mohan Pathak
Surender Mohan Pathak is an author of Hindi-language crime fiction with nearly 300 novels to his credit. His writing career, along with his full time job in Indian Telephone Industries, Delhi, began in the early 1960s with his brilliant Hindi translations of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, and...
, a Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
writer from Delhi
Delhi
Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...
, India.Originally published in 1980 by Shanu Paperbacks, it was translated into English by Sudarshan Purohit and published by Blaft Publications, Chennai
Chennai
Chennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...
, India in 2010.
It is the 8th novel in the Vimal series, and revolves around the robbery of a payroll van in Agra
Agra
Agra a.k.a. Akbarabad is a city on the banks of the river Yamuna in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, India, west of state capital, Lucknow and south from national capital New Delhi. With a population of 1,686,976 , it is one of the most populous cities in Uttar Pradesh and the 19th most...
. The novel is unique in the sense that this is the first time Vimal engages in a crime for his own personal benefit (till now all he did was under threat of other hard-core criminals). Dawarkanath, an aged gambler form Agra, tells him of a great artist, a plastic surgeon called Dr. Earl Slater, who would operate only on wanted Indian criminals (for an amazingly high fee, of course). If Vimal (actual name Sardar Surender Singh Sohal), a wanted criminal in several Indian states and NCR, can get a new face, he can live safe from both the law and its breakers. That's what pulls him in Dwarkanath's amazingly inhuman scheme - it would involve crashing the cash-carrying armoured van "like a piano accordion" ! along with the driver and security guard. The officer in charge of Ratanakar Steel Mill, whose weak point is his shamelessly materialistic wife, is blackmailed to give-in a very complicated machination, exploiting his love for gambling. The team somehow pulls off the thing but things (as they always happen to poor Vimal) go wrong - Dwarkanath dies of heart attack, the young and naive Kooka (another cooperator) loses both money and life, the money goes back to where it belongs and Vimal is left with empty pockets, his dream of a new face shattered and a long dark road full of underworld adventures stretching in front of him.