Sunil Kumar (1956-2021): A historian who was passionate about reading Delhi’s past from its present His big book was ‘The Emergence of the Delhi Sultanate, 1192-1286’. Sunil Kumar. | Chapati Mystery I never thought I would write about my friend Saddy, Professor Sunil Kumar of Delhi University, in the past tense. A big, loose-limbed athlete, who played basketball not only for his college, but for years afterwards with kids much younger than him in the playgrounds of Saket in South Delhi, I always thought he would outlive me and most of our contemporaries by many years. But now we get the shocking news that he has passed away in the early morning of January 17 in New Delhi, just a few months short of retiring from his position as Professor of History at the University of Delhi at the age of 65.