and received a Bachelor of Science in 1929, standing first in a class. Thereafter he enrolled for an M.A. in English, but dropped out, and joined the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army (HSRA), a revolutionary organisation, with a view to fight for Indian independence movement, and participated in rebellious activities against the British colonial government. In November 1930, he was arrested on account of his involvement in the attempt to help Bhagat Singh, a socialist revolutionary and leader of HSRA, to escape from jail in 1929. He was then sentenced on charge of sedition against British rule in India. He spent the next four years in jail in Lahore, Delhi and Amritsar. During these prison days, he started writing short stories, poems and the first draft of his novel Shekhar: Ek Jivani. He was associated with the Progressive Writers Association (PWA) and, in 1942, he organised the All India Anti-Fascist Convention. During World War II in 1942, he joined the Indian army and was sent to the Kohima Front as a combatant officer. He left the army in 1946. He stayed at Meerut (Uttar Pradesh) for sometime and remained active in local literary groups. During this period, he published several translations into English of other writers, and a collection of his own poems, Prison Days and Other Poems. Agyeya married Santosh Malik in 1940. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1945. He married Kapila Vatsyayan (née Malik) on 7 July 1956. They separated in 1969. He died on 4 April 1987, aged 76, in New Delhi. He was cremated at Nigambodh Ghat. Career After his release from jail in 1934, Agyeya worked as a journalist in Calcutta, and from 1939 for All India Radio. Agyeya edited Sainik from Agra (1936–37), Vishal Bharat from Calcutta (1937–39), Prateek (1947) and Naya Prateek (1973) respectively from Allahabad and New Delhi. In English. he edited Vak (1951). He served as an editor of Jayprakash Narayan's Everyman's Weekly (1973–74) and editor-in-chief of Hindi daily Navbharat Times (1977–80) of the Times of India Group. He travelled to Japan in 1957–58, where he learned about Zen Buddhism which influenced him and his writing style. In 1961, he joined the University of California, Berkeley as a visiting lecturer in Indian Literature and Civilization, and remained there until June 1964. In 1965, he returned to India and became Founder Editor of the newsweekly Dinaman of the Times of India Group.