Dilip was educated in Pilani, Providence, Delhi, Rishi Valley, Bombay, Cambridge, Austin and places in between. Once a computer scientist, he now writes for his suppers: about political and social issues, travel, sports and mathematics. Computer science stresses clear thinking, reason, and getting to the heart of matters. Maybe those shape his writing. Maybe not.

His writing has won him several awards, including the Statesman Rural Reporting award, the Outlook/Picador nonfiction prize and the Newsweek/Daily Beast Commentary Prize. He has published eight books, most recently The Deoliwallahs: The True Story of the 1962 Chinese-Indian Internment, (with Joy Ma.)