Dhabba - Surendra Mohan Pathak

@jmathur reviews and passion for Hindi novels inspired me to buy this one..

Sometimes, you can face the fact that movie name was not matched to the story been shown. Sometimes it looks like the name was feeling wise attached to the movie (Chocolate). But here I can say that a perfect naming convention is used. Dhabba named perfectly for the plot presented. But first staring the review of this novel, I must say that I am a novice reader of HINDI NOVELS. Before to this I've read only 2 other Hindi novels - Chandrakanta and Parineeta. Yes, this novel was in Hindi.

"Who have written it?" "Surendra Mohan Pathak" "Ok, but he has some series going on, with different characters" "Oh yes, there are 3 major characters of him"

About the author and his world: Surendra Mohan Pathak was born in 19 Feb, 1940 at Khemkaran, and he is one prominent Hindi novel-write, who wrote mystery novels. Like many English novelists, he has 3 character-series novels: Vimal series, Sudhir Kumar Kohli series, and Sunil series. He has written over 300 novels. That's lots of books, I must say, which I think no other novelist can attend the feat. He worked as an officer in Indian Telephone Industries in Delhi, and started his writing work by translating James Bond and James Hadley Chase novels in Hindi into HIndi, no wonder, which inspire him to write his own detective novel series, and can be easily said to be inspired by the stories too.

"So what's the story?" "Well its a murder mystery"

The plot and the book: This book is 334 pages long, and when I searched for my first serious Hindi encounter (chandrakanta came to me as accident, and I didn't buy it, while parineeta was chosen because of film name and length of book), I got this one as the least page book in the small book thadi outside railway station. It was printed by Raja Pocket Books. This novel belongs to Sunil series, and is 275th creation of him, and 119th in Sunil series. The original cost was Rs.75, I got it for Rs.70, and I will be giving it back, and will be getting Rs.50 back. Its a murder mystery, where a nurse named Gauri Parmar was murdered, and the initial motive behind it was a will of a famous rich patient, who gave away everything to one of his nurse while dies, and nothing to his own family. Now the daughter of that nurse Vaishali Pahuja was fighting a case with the family, and because of this one more important charcter named Prakash Khemka comes in light who is a publisher of a waste magazine named "Sarakta Aanchal". And who's there to solve evreything - a "Blast" reporter Sunil and his associate Ramakant Malhotra, plus an Inspector Prabhudayal thrown in between.

"Hey, so you liked it?" "Well, its an okay timepass"

Positives: The detective here is not a detective by choice, but his problem is he cannot live out of any mystery being played in front of him. I loved the characterization, Rajeev_Vermacially Sunil, who just want to utter anything, and never feared anybody, whether it's police or anyone. Ramakant as punjabi accent helper of the reporter, is too good, and is able to speak some humorous lines, although for me, I was not able to get much laughs from the novel, since it's too common for any Hindi serial kinda stuff. Mystery is woven good, and the characterization is good.

"So, are there any negative points too?" "Yes, there are"

Negatives: Well, biggest negative is this kind of story is too common, yes author wove it well, but stories behind wills are very common on Indian detective tv serials. Plus readability is one more issue. Direct dialogues are written, without mentioning who is speaking them, I think that format is too much used here, and if you're not reading it slowly, getting full mazaa of this novel, you may not understand who is speaking what. That could be limited to few paras only. Some english words are used, that is common in our language, but some hard words like "Damsel in Distress". I've read so many english novels, still I was unable to get the meaning of Damsel, although I can derive the meaning from lines, but for common Hindi reader, I doubt! and a common Hindi speaker, I doubt! Dialogues seem in the lines of Hindi bakwaas family soap operas.

"So, would you recomment it or not?" "Well, I will suggest"

My Take: Hmm, I can give this novel 3/5 for a good timepass, and someone who wanted to start reading other language novels, this can be a good beginning, instead of Chandrakanta, but for a regular Hindi reader or a follower of Surendra Mohan Pathak series, they may read because of Habit, liking and not leaving behind any book by him. I suggest a YES for this novel, go and read it. For me, I think I will still love Devki Nandan Khatri or the writers of adventure/fantasy kind of writing, since that's my personal choice, I watch detective serials, fan of Sam Desilva/Gopi and Byonkesh Bakshi, but reading detective novels, still far for me..

GRuchirG.

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Hindi mystery writer Surendra Mohan Pathak possesses the knack of mixing humour in his whodunnits. It applies mainly to his Sunil Series novels whose hero is an investigative journalist. Today I am reviewing a relatively recent novel of his (published last year only) in which the complete opening chapter is dedicated to humour only and the mystery which is the main theme of the novel follows that. The name of this highly entertaining murder mystery is Dhabba (stain).

Since Mr. Pathak commands great knowledge of Urdu language and Sher-O-Shaayari too, he has used this knowledge of his in creating humour through the hero's Punjabi friend, Ramakant Malhotra. The readers who have some general awareness of Sher-O-Shaayari (Urdu poetry), will laugh like anything while going through the opening chapter of this whodunnit.

Dhabba starts with a Mushaayara (the conference of Urdu poetry) arranged in the Youth Club (run by Ramakant) where the hero of the novel, Sunil reaches. Ramakant alongwith Sunil enters the Mushaayara and gets irritated to listen to the nonsense Ghazals and Nazms being recited by most of the Shaayars (Urdu poets). He then declares that he will also recite Shers (Urdu couplets). He recites Shers in his own style and interacts with the Shaayars present there. These incidents lead to a laugh-riot for the reader. Sunil, being more sensible than his friend, drags him out of the conference hall which is the venue of the Mushaayara. Thereafter the friends start discussing the real issue which is the problem of a publisher, running a semi-porno magazine who also happens to be the arranger of that Mushaayara in the club. He, in fact, runs something like a friendship club under the pretext of running the slightly indecent magazine and earns through the advertisers whose posts are received at the post boxes provided by him.

The problem of this publisher, Prakash Khemka, turns out to be a complaint lodged against him by his competitors that he increases his sell through fictitious advertisements linked to post boxes because the respondent to the post box advertisement is required to attach a coupon with his reply which is to be cut from the magazine itself. Khemka seeks Sunil's help in this regard to prove that his post-box linked advertisements are genuine and draws his attention to an advertisement of this category, given by a young lady who is not willing to let anybody know her identity (except the one whom she is going to contact herself). Due to his helping-nature and ever-present aspiration to get interesting stories for his newspaper, Sunil agrees to help him and take certain steps in this regard with the support of a young trainee journalist in the office of his newspaper, Blast.

However after the purpose of Khemka is served, Sunil comes to know that he has been used by Khemka for his vested interest linked to a sum of Rs. 20 crore left by a deceased rich person as inheritance for the mother of the young lady in question. Now things take such a turn that the young lady, Vaishali Paahuja, finds herself trapped in the charge of murdering her friend, Gauri Parmaar. One life-principle of Sunil is - 'I cannot see a damsel in distress'. Hence he is ever-ready to help the damsels (only when he believes that the concerned damsel is really innocent). How Sunil investigates the murder alongwith Ramakant and proves Vaishali's innocence by exposing the real murderer, is the remaining story, full of mysterious twists and turns and containing many colourful characters. The novel deals with the police strategies (gimmicks) also, used to pressurize the suspects in the bid to extract the truth out of them and during the investigative proceedings, Sunil and his love-hate buddy, police inspector Prabhudayal try to outwit each other, adding further spice to the already interesting narrative.

Dhabba is a highly entertaining novel, much better than several so-called entertaining Bollywood movies. While the first chapter makes the reader laugh out loud, the following chapters keep him engrossed in going through the mystery. After it is over, it renders the full Paisa Vasool feeling to the reader.

Despite being a murder mystery, Dhabba has enormous repeat value because of the high-quality humour incorporated in it. Since the Sher-O-Shaayari like things cannot be translated properly in English, this novel can be thoroughly enjoyed in its original Hindi version only. Readers of Hindi fiction should not miss this big treat which combines both humour and suspense in its menu.

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