“Professor Lal’s business was publishing Indian writers in English. Of the great old works he made masterly translations; new writers he encouraged.” (He published the early works of, among others, Vikram Seth, Dilip Hiro and Anita Desai.) “No secretary, assistant or copy editor helped him; he did all the nitty gritty of correcting and editing himself.” His other great project was translating the entire 100,000-verse Mahabharata into readable English.