Created by Subha
Pseudonym of D. Suresh and A.N. Balakrishnan
“Clever girl!” teased Narendran, getting into the car.
— Narendran in “Hurricane Vaij”
NARENDRAN and VAIJAYANTHI are a “spunky young couple” who work together at the Eagle’s Eye Detective Agency in India, in hundreds of stories written in Tamil by bestselling Indian author Subha (actually the pen name for the pulp writing duo of D. Suresh and A.N. Balakrishnan.
Narendran and Vaijayanthi work relatively well together, except when they’re flirting or arguing with each other, or trying to outdo each other. Narendran’s the one with slightly more experience, a smug alpha dog who’s often rather patronizing towards Vaijayanthi, particularly in the early books where she’s only a junior employee. She steps up, however, later on in the series, becoming an expert in karate and pretty handy with a gun, as well — not that it stops Naren from occasionally still lording it over her. Or at least trying to.
Their cases often involve their coworker John Sundar, and they’ve even “double-dated,” collaborating with another popular Tamil detective duo, Prabakar’s Bharat and Susheela from the Moonlight Agency.
Suresh and Balakrishnan began writing together when they were in college, and have published more than 550 short novels, more than 400 short stories and at least fifty novels, most of which feature Narendran and Vaijayanthi. They have also written screenplays and dialogue for several Tamil films and television series. Still friends after all these years (their first co-written story was published in 1979), they live with their respective families in adjacent apartments in Adyar, Chennai, the capital of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Recently, a few of Subha’s Narendran and Vaijayanthi stories have been published in English and have appeared in collections of Tamil pulp fiction put out by Indian publisher Blaft.
STORIES
- “Narendran Jakkirathai! ” (September 1987, Super Novel; published as “Look Out, Narendran!” April 7, 2015, Granta)
- “Hurricane Vaij” (1993; 2008, The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
- (2017, The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction, Volume 3)Â |Â Buy this book
