In the middle of a murder

With its earthy core and racy action, pulp fiction has entered the angrezi market to conquer the hearts and minds of English readers

In the middle of a murder

With its earthy core and racy action, pulp fiction has entered the angrezi market to conquer the hearts and minds of English readers

Nadia was lying on the bed, her chest half exposed. Her dress had ridden up above her knees to reveal her calves........

A Hindi pulp fiction novel

"There's nothing wrong with sex, Nirmal. If everybody thought like that, no one would get born in the first place," She reached out and grasped his strong arm. Her eyes were brimming with lust. "I've been burning with desire all day."

The above excerpt is from 'Hello, Good Dead Morning' by well known Tamil pulp writer Rajesh Kumar published in Tamil Pulp Fiction, Volume II by Blaft Publications.

u00a0"Bani was becoming an expert in his cabalistic skills. He knew that his voodoo had begun to work. He waited for the night of the twenty-fourth. On that night, he did not sleep, he went into deep meditation. At five in the morning, he dashed the doll's head on the prison wall and crushed it...

Mahadevan was in the bathroom when the floor suddenly seemed to slip out from under him. His feet shot into the air and he fell to the side. His head bashed into the small tiles between the Western toilet and the sink, taking the full force of his body weight, he crashed to the floor, never to wake again."

The above excerpt is from, 'Hold on a minute, I'm in the middle of a murder' by Tamil pulp writer Indumathi published in Tamil Pulp Fiction, Volume II by Blaft Publications.

A scene from a crime thriller desi style. It's pulpy, it's popular in Tamil, Urdu, Hindi and other vernacular languages.

But desi pulp literature is now available in English too. It may not exactly be in highbrow English language, but the translations appear to do justice to the original.
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Publishers of these pulp books in English have launched them in Mumbai with fanfare to capture, as they put it, the imagination of English readers.

It has kept its readers enthralled and entertained them for nearly a 100 years. For example, Ibn-e-Safi's Jasoosi Duniya has captured the imagination of Urdu pulp readers for decades. Surender Mohan Pathak's Paisath Lakh Ki Dakaity (The 65 Lakh Heist) has entertained readers for years.

Vernacular pulp, now available in English, is all set to entertain English readers in Mumbai and other big Indian cities.

Some half-hearted attempts have been made earlier but the latest move is more organised and much bigger in scale.

No more are they just restricted to railway stations and platforms but are now on bookshelves of well-known bookstores like Landmark (at Phoenix, Lower Parel).

Rakesh Khanna from Blaft Publications had recently launched these books in Mumbai.

"The younger generation does not read Hindi. Translations of these books are definitely increasing their market value," says Narendra Kumar Verma, chairman, Diamond Pocket Books Pvt Ltd.

He is confident readers of English pulp will like the sexy, gory world of Indian pulp literature.

But the moot question is, does desi pulp in English have a market in Mumbai and other cities in India? Before trying to find the answer, we look at vernacular pulp markets.

In disarray

Mustajab Ahmed Siddiqui, who goes by the pen name Shelle, and who has designed covers for many pulp novels, believes pulp literature is in a state of permanent decline. "Things have changed now. The world of pulp literature is slowly deteriorating and has shrunk tremendously," says Siddiqui.

The reading habit itself seems to be in decline in the wake of the popularity of the Internet and social networking sites.

Authors lament that boys and girls spend hours wading through heaps of information in the cyber world but they don't necessarily attain knowledge. Books, they say, have stopped being their companions.
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Surender Mohan Pathak, considered as the grandmaster of Hindi crime fiction paints a gloomier picture of the world of pulp fiction.

"The reading habits of the new generation have suffered due to the influx of internet, cable and multiplex cultures.
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Parents today, don't motivate youngsters to read. They don't pay any heed to the axiom:u00a0 a person who does not read is no better than a person who cannot read."

New territory

Even die hard fans of pulp literature appear to have lost the appetite for it. Perhaps that has prompted some publishers of desi pulp to take an unchartered leap into the world of the English literary market.
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Publishing houses such as Blaft and Diamond Pocket Books are bringing out English translations of this genre of fiction to make it available for English audience.

The pocket books are no more published on cheap paper; instead, they are now available in quality paper with attractive covers to lure customers.

"This is Indian writing from the heartland full of local smells, culture, punch, social and familial framework, personalities and language, and since they have never been translated into English before, Indians who only read in English, and the rest of the world, have been missing out on this," says Kaveri Lalchandani, CEO, Blaft Publications, which publishes English translations of these books.
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He's hooked

Meghashyam Shirodkar, CEO of QuizCorp, is hooked to the Indian pulp books in English and is not ashamed to admit it. His introduction to this genre was coincidental. A consolation prize won in a quiz competition two years ago opened up a completely new world for the 33-year-old quiz enthusiast. The prize was a copy of the English translation of Surender Mohan Pathak's best-selling crime thriller, 'The 65 Lakh Heist (Paisath Lakh Ki Dakaity)'.
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The book, originally written in Hindi, had sold over three lakh copies but Shirodkar was not a fan of books written in Hindi. "I read the book because it was translated in English and from then on I got hooked to pulp fiction," says Shirodkar.
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He was so fascinated by the book that he even introduced his wife, Arwa Poonawala to the world of pulp fiction. Ramanand J, a software engineer, is another convert to pulp fiction in English.

He believes that Indian writers of pulp books are at par with their Western counterparts in terms of quality. "The best part is these writers come from middle class backgrounds and are people like you and me," he says.

International recognition

Indian pulp books are now on the cusp of gaining international recognition. "We got covered on the U.S. National Public Radio recently which gave a big spike to our Amazon sales, and a California paper, The East Bay Express, named Tamil Pulp Fiction Vol. II as one of the best books of 2010," says Lalchandani.

Bollywood calling

Their English translations are also likely to find an unlikely partner in promoting them. One can draw simlarities between a famous pulp fiction hero Agent Vinod and Saif Ali Khan's upcoming movie called 'Agent Vinod'. "There's been a lot of interest from Bollywood.

These books are full of masala heroes, goondas, vamps and good girls! Perfect Bollywood formula," says Lalchandani.
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In these books, the characters are wonderful, plots are thrilling, bedroom scenes are steamy, the imagination runs wild, the women are buxom and gorgeous and the villains heartless. All the ingredients needed in a Bollywood movie. But will they fire the imagination ofu00a0 readers of English literature?

Sudarshan Purohit, who translated Pathak's Paisath Lakh Ki Dakaity, says that pulp writers are not literary writers and the popularity of their books depends on their ability to hook the readers.

"It is good to see writers who were enormously popular in Hindi for decades, people with fan clubs and millions of copies sold are being discovered by readers in English who treat them like new sensations," says Purohit.

Thin line

Many established writers and authors believe that there is a thin line between pulp fiction and genre fiction also known as popular fiction. Says Tabish Khair, an Indian writer based in Denmark, "Pulp fiction does not press the borders and explore the potential of its generic form.

Genre fiction does so: take for instance, the science fiction of Phillip K Dick, or the detective fiction of Walter Mosley. I take genre fiction very seriously; I have a lot of respect for it. Serious literary writers who ignore genre fiction do it at their own peril."

"Every writing is serious writing. How can anything be achieved when you are not serious in your attempt and not committed to the job you have undertaken? A job can be deemed as well done only when you have executed it with the utmost earnestness and poured your 100 per cent into it," saysu00a0 Pathak.

A bookstall in Dadar which sells pulp magazines

Writer Indra Soundarrajan, a household name in Tamil Nadu, thinks pulp fiction writers are versatile, "From family drama to mythical novels to thrillers, we can write on anything and everything," says Soundarrajan.

Other authors like Sri Venugopalan, with a pen name of Pushpa Thangadurai, believe that the sheer number of books that sell like hotcakes suggest that people do take them seriously.

Tricky business

"The fact that Indian bhasha pulp is being translated into English now such as Tamil pulp by Blaft is an indication of the expansion and democratisation of the Indian English readership," says Khair. Translation is an art, but it is a tricky business. It may not be possible to capture the essence of the original textbook in translation. Many authors complain that the essence of their book is lost in translation.

They often draw a comparison between Indian and Western translators in English. There are stylistic elements in the original that can't always be preserved in translation. But Pathak has a more balanced view on translation. "It all depends upon the translator.

Two of my books translated into English under titles, 'The 65 Lakh Heist' and 'The Daylight Robbery' were not lost in translation. The translator did such a good job that if the fact that the original was in Hindi were to be concealed, nobody would have known the difference. So, I reiterate, it all depends upon the translator," says Pathak.

Purohit, a software professional, who translated Pathak's 'The 65 Lakh Heist', accepts the compliment but believes that translation is a learning process where the translator has to be adept at "weaving suspense and pace from writers renowned for it."

Says Purohit, "Fluency and creative writing skill in English is an absolute must. Then, you read a lot of the source language as well to get a feel for the flow and style of the books. And finally, translation isn't a one-off process. You do a first draft, then you revise again and again until it flows smoothly."

According to Sri Venugopal, for the translated versions to acquire a cult following, like the original books, the translator should be as skilful and imaginative as the original author himself.

Not cool

Talk about English pulp and you could just rattle off names like James Hadley Chase and Robert Wallace. But English readers are ignorant of Indian pulp writers. "It is not cool to be seen with such books as many consider it lowbrow and hence people would instead go for classic literature," says Pathak.u00a0 Pick a crime thriller and it definitely has a desi feel to it that we as Indian readers would never get from English.

"Where English pulp scores over Hindi right now, is the originality of the plots. A lot of Hindi writers just take the easy way out and rip off plots from English books. Characters in these books drink water from lotaas, drive in Fiats, get stabbed in sleeper bogeys in trains, take on dadas in Mumbai," ends Purohit.

WHAT IS PULP?
Pulp magazines or pulp fiction refers to fiction magazines which were printed on cheap paper and were inexpensive. The name pulp comes from the cheap wood pulp paper on which magazines were printed.

FAMOUS PULP WRITERS
HINDI:u00a0Surender Mohan Pathak, Ved Prakash Sharma
TAMIL: u00a0Indra Soundarrajan, Rajesh Kumar, Pushpa Thangadorai
URDU: u00a0Ibn-e-Safi

Jasusi Duniya seriesu00a0Urdu Pulp Fiction

Ibn-e-Safi's Jasusi Duniya is a delightfully demented world of larger-than-life villains, mad genius detectives, and beautiful femme fatales. With a huge cult following in both India and Pakistan, the Jasusi Duniya series spanned 125 novels, published between 1952 and 1979. They remain some of the bestselling books in Urdu even today.

Ibn-e-Safi: One of the best-loved and quirkiest Urdu writers of the 20th century, Ibne Safi was born Asrar Ahmed in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, in 1928.u00a0 He migrated to Karachi, Pakistan, shortly after the publication of the first Jasusi Duniya novel, and lived there until his death in 1980.

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