Is chaalaak, chatur aur naate kad ke yoddha ko bejhijhak sabhi khatarnaak kaarya saunpe jaate hain. Astérix apni atimaanveey shakti ojha Aushadhix ke jaadui kaadhe se prapt karta hai." It may take a while for fans of one of the bestselling comics in the world to warm up to this description of its central characters. But once that happens, the world of the Gauls — residents of a historical region of Western Europe in which Astérix is set — reveals itself in a new light, complete with re-christened characters, Sanskritised war cries and even SD Burman songs. That the French series can now be read in Hindi also promises to open up the Astérix universe to new readers.

Published by Om Books International, the first four albums of the comics series in Hindi — there are four more in the pipeline — were released jointly by the Ambassador of France to India, Alexandre Ziegler, and publisher Ajay Mago, in Delhi earlier this week. While readers are only beginning to lay their hands on the titles, for translators Dipa Chaudhuri and Puneet Gupta, they are the culmination of five years of intense work. For, their translation stems from the original French series, not the widely circulated English comics. But the idea took birth even earlier.