The self-styled professor is so learned that he discovers the meaning of hanky-panky and hocus-pocus. His sense of propriety demands that English should be treated at all times with respect. He even chides the young schoolmaster for reading an English novel lying down, instead of sitting up, properly dressed in shirt and trousers. But at the same time he devours pornography, and believes that his young son is taking his geometry book to the lavatory to help him masturbate better. Triangles, after all, he reminds the temporary schoolmaster, are ancient tantric symbols. Khushwant Singh has called the novel “hilarious and disturbing” and both adjectives fit very well. Joshi brilliantly recreates the staff-room politics of the school, the unspoken hierarchies in the village and the rivalry between the principal and the professor. Stepping aside from satire, he describes the changes over the past decades and brings aspects of uncertainty and tragedy to his story. This is perhaps the first of his novels to be translated — and it should not be missed.