Born in 1951 in the then Malabar District of Madras Presidency (currently Malappuram District of Kerala State), India and educated in the University of Calicut and Jawaharlal Nehru University, I have a Master's and Doctoral degree in history. I taught for 42 years in different colleges and Universities in India, finally retiring in 2016 from the University of Delhi. I have more than a dozen books and about a hundred research papers to my credit.