India, April 19 -- In 1977, the Hindi crime writer Surendra Mohan Pathak published Paisath Lakh Ki Dakaiti (The 65 Lakh Heist), a nail-biting novel about a daring bank robbery.

Though he had written 93 books before this one, and was reasonably well-known, this would become his biggest hit and establish him as a top-drawer author in his field.

Pathak, born in February 1940, turned 85 this year. His aura remains undimmed, even though the glory days of Hindi pulp-fiction themselves are long over.

These low-cost paperbacks, published on coarse, recycled paper and known in the trade as pocket books or lugdi (Hindi for pulp), were wildly popular in the 1970s and '80s. There were as many as 70 publishers releasing new titles in those years, m...