[1] Desani is best known for his novel[2] All About H. Hatterr, first published in Great Britain in 1948, which cast an absurdist, comedic light on the plight of a common man in a multicultural, pan-ethnic world.

[3] Hatterr is notable for its many revised editions and attendant reviews received over seven decades which describe the book as … "a genuine literary rarity, the lost-and-found masterpiece,"[4] "a lost classic",[5] and, of the author, an "elusive talent of the Fifties.

"[6] Post 40, Desani became a seeker, devotee, adept, reporter and lecturer on ancient Indian traditions — including obscure mantric and tantric crafts — to Eastern and Western audiences.

[14] He arrived in England speaking only Hindi but within a couple of years had mastered English to the point that he was befriended by several prominent Londoners.

For example, he was recommended by George Lansbury MP, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, for admission as a reader to the British Museum Library.

During World War II, Desani lectured in both English and Hindustani for the British Ministry of Information and the Imperial Institute.

Recalling his popularity as a lecturer during the war, Anthony Burgess wrote, "Desani came to England, in fact, to demonstrate in live speech the vitality of the British rhetorical tradition, brilliant in Burke and Macaulay, decadent in Churchill, now dead.

These teachers, typically residing in rural Indian villages, assigned him arduous disciplines, often requiring months of intense Sādhanā.

His articles included short stories, and commentary on Indian social and cultural issues, ethics, religion and occultism.