Surender Mohan Pathak
Encyclopedia
Surender Mohan Pathak (born 19 February 1940 at Khemkaran
, Amritsar
, Punjab
) 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 the works of James Hadley Chase
. He also wrote his own James Bond series.
His first short story, 57 saal puraana aadmi ५७ साल पुराना आदमी (The Man aged 57), was published by मनोहर कहानीयां in 1959, and his first full length novel, Operation Budapest
, came out in 1969.
His major work began with what is called the "Sunil" series,
सुनील-सीरीज़ which consists of at least 115 novels. Sunil, a debonair and upright investigative journalist for the fictional daily newspaper Blast, lives in the fictional city of Rajnagar. Sunil has a quixotic nature when it comes to damsels in distress
, which happens too often and in pursuit of justice, mostly with help of his best friend Ramakant Malhotra, a dipsomania
c and owner of a bar
called Youth Club. Sunil often ends up on the wrong side of the law and has to face Inspector Prabhudayal, the exceptionally strict and incorruptible officer in charge of the homicide division.
The "philosopher" detective Sudhir Kumar Kohli is another series character of Pathak. This series is totally reciprocal likewise Sunil as in this dilli ka khaas kism ka haraami is the hero and likewise Inspector Devender Kumar Yadav who can easily be persuaded to do something dishonest. A recent novel of this (in)famous series has been trasnlated by Giriraj Sharan (uncredited) and published by Diamond Books under the title of The Last Goal
However the best-known series of novels of Pathak is Vimal ( विमल ), a.k.a. Sardar Surender Singh Sohal सरदार सुरेन्द्र सिंह सोहल
a.k.a. another dozen names he uses to camouflage his identity in the Mumbai underworld. He has taken up arms against gangsters like Rajbahadur Bakhia, and after killing him, his next avatar Iqbal Singh and then Vyaas Shankar Gajre. The Sardar has associates like Tukaram and his henchmen, like Wagle and Irfan, etc. Vimal is not a private detective or police inspector but a criminal wanted in seven states.
Many collections of Joke-books compiled by Pathak have been published. Several authors have been known to plagiarise or "borrow" heavily from his works.
and Daylight Robbery
by Sudarshan Purohit, a Bangalore
based software engineer. The 65 Lakh Heist was published in March 2009, and Daylight Robbery
in January 2010, both by Blaft, a Chennai based publisher.
Purohit and Blaft are currently working on translating Karamjale, another Vimal novel, into English. This is expected to be titled Fortune's Ransom, due for the end of 2010.
Khemkaran
Khem Karan is a town and a nagar panchayat in Tarn Taran district in the Indian state of Punjab. It was the site of a major tank battle in 1965 resulting it also being known as the graveyard of tanks....
, Amritsar
Amritsar
Amritsar is a city in the northern part of India and is the administrative headquarters of Amritsar district in the state of Punjab, India. The 2001 Indian census reported the population of the city to be over 1,500,000, with that of the entire district numbering 3,695,077...
, Punjab
Punjab (British India)
Punjab was a province of British India, it was one of the last areas of the Indian subcontinent to fall under British rule. With the end of British rule in 1947 the province was split between West Punjab, which went to Pakistan, and East Punjab, which went to India...
) is an author of 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...
-language crime fiction
Crime fiction
Crime fiction is the literary genre that fictionalizes crimes, their detection, criminals and their motives. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as science fiction or historical fiction, but boundaries can be, and indeed are, blurred...
with nearly 300 novels to his credit. His writing career, along with his full time job in Indian Telephone Industries, 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...
, began in the early 1960s with his brilliant Hindi translations of Ian Fleming
Ian Fleming
Ian Lancaster Fleming was a British author, journalist and Naval Intelligence Officer.Fleming is best known for creating the fictional British spy James Bond and for a series of twelve novels and nine short stories about the character, one of the biggest-selling series of fictional books of...
’s James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
novels, and the works of James Hadley Chase
James Hadley Chase
James Hadley Chase is the best-known pseudonym of the British writer Rene Brabazon Raymond who also wrote under the names James L. Docherty, Ambrose Grant, and Raymond Marshall. Chase is one of the best known thriller writers of all time...
. He also wrote his own James Bond series.
His first short story, 57 saal puraana aadmi ५७ साल पुराना आदमी (The Man aged 57), was published by मनोहर कहानीयां in 1959, and his first full length novel, Operation Budapest
Operation Budapest
Operation Budapest was a joint investigation between the Italian Carabinieri, the Hungarian police and the Greek police.On 5 November 1983 the following works were stolen from the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest:* Self-portrait, Giorgione...
, came out in 1969.
His major work began with what is called the "Sunil" series,
सुनील-सीरीज़ which consists of at least 115 novels. Sunil, a debonair and upright investigative journalist for the fictional daily newspaper Blast, lives in the fictional city of Rajnagar. Sunil has a quixotic nature when it comes to damsels in distress
Damsel in distress
The subject of the damsel in distress, or persecuted maiden, is a classic theme in world literature, art, and film. She is usually a beautiful young woman placed in a dire predicament by a villain or monster and who requires a hero to achieve her rescue. She has become a stock character of fiction,...
, which happens too often and in pursuit of justice, mostly with help of his best friend Ramakant Malhotra, a dipsomania
Dipsomania
Dipsomania is a historical term describing a medical condition involving an uncontrollable craving for alcohol. It was used in the 19th century to describe a variety of alcohol-related problems, most of which are most commonly conceptualized today as alcoholism, but it is occasionally still used to...
c and owner of a bar
Bar (establishment)
A bar is a business establishment that serves alcoholic drinks — beer, wine, liquor, and cocktails — for consumption on the premises.Bars provide stools or chairs that are placed at tables or counters for their patrons. Some bars have entertainment on a stage, such as a live band, comedians, go-go...
called Youth Club. Sunil often ends up on the wrong side of the law and has to face Inspector Prabhudayal, the exceptionally strict and incorruptible officer in charge of the homicide division.
The "philosopher" detective Sudhir Kumar Kohli is another series character of Pathak. This series is totally reciprocal likewise Sunil as in this dilli ka khaas kism ka haraami is the hero and likewise Inspector Devender Kumar Yadav who can easily be persuaded to do something dishonest. A recent novel of this (in)famous series has been trasnlated by Giriraj Sharan (uncredited) and published by Diamond Books under the title of The Last Goal
However the best-known series of novels of Pathak is Vimal ( विमल ), a.k.a. Sardar Surender Singh Sohal सरदार सुरेन्द्र सिंह सोहल
a.k.a. another dozen names he uses to camouflage his identity in the Mumbai underworld. He has taken up arms against gangsters like Rajbahadur Bakhia, and after killing him, his next avatar Iqbal Singh and then Vyaas Shankar Gajre. The Sardar has associates like Tukaram and his henchmen, like Wagle and Irfan, etc. Vimal is not a private detective or police inspector but a criminal wanted in seven states.
Many collections of Joke-books compiled by Pathak have been published. Several authors have been known to plagiarise or "borrow" heavily from his works.
Miscellaneous Facts
- Pathak was the first writer to coin the term company that has today become common slang for Mumbai underworld gangs like D-CompanyD-CompanyD-Company is a term coined by the media for the criminal organization and terrorist group headed by wanted terrorist leader and crime boss Dawood Ibrahim....
- The TandoorTandoorA tandoor is a cylindrical clay oven used in cooking and baking. The tandoor is used for cooking in Azerbaijan, India, Turkey, Iran, Armenia, Georgia, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, the Balkans, the Middle East, and Central Asia, as well as Burma and Bangladesh.The heat for a tandoor was...
scandal in Delhi, in which a man had tried to dispose of the corpse of his victim in a furnace, was an idea taken from Pathak's non-serial novel titled MawaliMawali (novel)Mawali, , is a Hindi language novel by Surender Mohan Pathak. It is based upon the biography of a fictional personality called Shyamrav Pethekar, better known as Sikander...
(मवाली). - During a recent robberyRobberyRobbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take something of value by force or threat of force or by putting the victim in fear. At common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear....
at UTI BankAxis BankAxis Bank Limited, formerly UTI Bank, is a financial services firm that had begun operations in 1994, after the Government of India allowed new private banks to be established...
, VikaspuriVikaspuriVikaspuri is a Upper Middle Class residential locality within Delhi, India. Started by the Delhi Development Authority in the 1980s, it boomed in population in the late 1990s....
, a man called Sandeep Bhatnagar looted four million Indian rupees by pretending to be a human bombHuman bombHuman bomb generally refers to a suicide bomberBut may also refer to* Human Bomb - a fictional superhero published by DC Comics....
. Investigators learned after arresting the culprit that the idea was copied from Zameer ka Qaidi ( ज़मीर का क़ैदी ), one of the latest Vimal-series novels.
Translations
Two books from Pathak's popular Vimal series: 65 Lakh ki Dakaiti, and Din Dahade Dakaiti were translated to English under the titles The 65 Lakh HeistThe 65 Lakh Heist
The 65 Lakh Heist is first English version of any Surender Mohan Pathak book. The hindi crime thriller पैंसठ लाख की डकैती . was first published in 1977. The novel revolves around the exploit of Vimal and his friends that is breaking the vault the Bharat Bank at Amritsar to loot 65 Lakh rupees...
and Daylight Robbery
Daylight Robbery (novel)
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...
by Sudarshan Purohit, a Bangalore
Bangalore
Bengaluru , formerly called Bengaluru is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. Bangalore is nicknamed the Garden City and was once called a pensioner's paradise. Located on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern part of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and...
based software engineer. The 65 Lakh Heist was published in March 2009, and Daylight Robbery
Daylight Robbery (novel)
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...
in January 2010, both by Blaft, a Chennai based publisher.
Purohit and Blaft are currently working on translating Karamjale, another Vimal novel, into English. This is expected to be titled Fortune's Ransom, due for the end of 2010.
See also
- The 65 Lakh HeistThe 65 Lakh HeistThe 65 Lakh Heist is first English version of any Surender Mohan Pathak book. The hindi crime thriller पैंसठ लाख की डकैती . was first published in 1977. The novel revolves around the exploit of Vimal and his friends that is breaking the vault the Bharat Bank at Amritsar to loot 65 Lakh rupees...
- Daylight RobberyDaylight Robbery (novel)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...
- MawaliMawali (novel)Mawali, , is a Hindi language novel by Surender Mohan Pathak. It is based upon the biography of a fictional personality called Shyamrav Pethekar, better known as Sikander...