In 1952, when Jagadisa Thyagarajan (1931–2017), who had not yet assumed the pseudonym Ashokamitran, left Secunderabad, where he was born, grew up and spent the first twenty years of his life, he believed it would be a clean break from the past. The preceding years had been marked by political and social turmoil, causing him much disillusionment and anguish, and he likely welcomed the move to another city. For many years after that, Hyderabad and Secunderabad remained far from his mind. Many decades and writings later, however, he would acknowledge that the place and the people he encountered there had a profound influence on him. He passed away in 2017.