A few days back I heard from a PhD scholar at EFLU, Hyderabad. The scholar is studying the construction of male sexuality and is using my 2012 novel Roll of Honour as a primary text.

While chatting with the scholar I learnt this year the National Eligibility Test (NET) had questions from Roll of Honour. I am delighted.

1. because this book went places in its time but is now largely forgotten. Apparently not.
2. in my time I shied away from NET because I felt I would never crack it. (I did not know enough history of English literature.)
3. not writing NET was the reason I could not become an academic. I bumbled along and wrote books.

During my MA, one of my teachers, Prof Narayan Chandran once said in class, ‘There might be a leather head sitting here. Who knows, in 20 years we might be reading books written by her/him.’

I am glad to be that leather head.