A cover from the Daishyu Bhaskar series

Guwahati, Dec. 21: Daishyu Bhaskar, Assam’s very own Robinhood, is back to torment the bad men and play saviour of the oppressed.

Assamese literature’s most popular thriller series of the seventies and eighties has made a comeback in grand style, going by the rate at which the Daishyu Bhaskar series disappeared off the shelves during the just-concluded Guwahati Book Fair.

Written by Robin Dey under the pseudonym Rongmon, the series was one of the first to explore the thriller genre in Assamese literature and became an instant hit among children and grown-ups alike.

Dey was born and brought up in Tezpur. He shifted to Calcutta later.

Daishyu Bhaskar literally means Bandit Bhaskar, a hero in the mould of Robinhood who robbed the rich to help the poor. The series went out of circulation in the nineties with a new a breed of writers coming in and cable television attracting children more than the written word.

A source in the Assam Book Sellers and Publishers’ Association attributed the renewed interest in the fictional character to “curiosity” among the new generation.

“Today’s children must have heard about the Bhaskar series from their parents or elders because there was hardly anyone in the seventies and eighties who had not read at least one novel of the Daishyu Bhaskar series. The curiosity was always there. The only problem was unavailability of the books,” the source added.

A spokesperson of the Calcutta-based Sribhumi Publishing Company said the management decided to come out with new prints after inquiries from booksellers as well as Bhaskar fans from Assam.

Anamika Borah, a housewife and avid reader, said she always wanted her children to read the series that “gave us so much pleasure during our schooldays”.

“I looked everywhere for the book but did not find it. It was a pleasant surprise when I saw the series at the book fair. I picked up 15 books from the series,” Borah said.

Dey wrote around 50 Daishyu Bhaskar books, the first titled Daishyu Bhaskarar Abirbhab (Arrival of Daishyu Bhaskar), till his death.

The protagonist of the series was the son of a poor farmer from Sivasagar district and became a renegade after his parents died in poverty. The youth, born Kamal Bora, took the name of Daishyu Bhaskar for his campaign against oppression.

Dey did not care much about language or plots and drew inspiration from well-known fictional characters.

Like Lee Falk’s Phantom, Dey’s Daishyu Bhaskar wore an overcoat and hat, as depicted in the cover of the books. And like the Phantom’s famous skull mark, Bhaskar too left a mark on the people he targeted — the red imprint of a palm.

Ananta Hazarika, the propeitor of publishing house Banalata, attributed Daishyu Bhaskar’s overwhelming popularity to the lack of Assamese thriller novels at the time when Dey conceived the protagonist of his series.

“Rongmon’s books gave us the thrill of the unknown. It is only later that Assamese literature got some more thriller writers.”