 At his sudden death due to heart attack in 2000, Indian journalist Dileep Padgaonkar wrote, "But Aravind's real obsession, the one that shaped his thinking, guided his written output and nourished his conversations, was his native Bihar.It can be said without exaggeration that no contemporary Indian thinker has spoken and written about the glorious past, the dismal present and potential for a great future of this state with such lofty eloquence as he did.In his eyes, Bihar was a metaphor for India itself.