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Gopal Prasad Rimal was a poet born in Kathmandu, Nepal in 1918. During his adolescence, he came under the influence of revolutionaries who were aspiring to overthrow the then despotic Rana regime. Though Rimal had begun his career as a successful poet in 1930, and as a playwright in 1940, it was in 1941 that the real Rimal emerged on the center stage of Nepal's literary and political arena. In 1941, the brutal execution of the patriot Dashrath Chand and his friends fired Rimal's imagination and thus revolution became the bedrock of his creative ventures. Rimal founded a creative organization called "Praja Panchayat" to raise a voice against the suppression of Nepalese masses by the autocratic Rana rulers, and was imprisoned on several occasions for his involvement in the Movement. He played a pivotal role in making the 1950-51 Democratic Movement successful, but soon after he grew disillusioned. His dreams of a democratic Nepal were shattered as "harlots of anarchy" in the garb of democracy started dancing in the "castles of filth." Rimal lost his mental balance and was sent to an asylum in Ranchi. Later, he was brought back to Nepal to spend the rest of his life roaming insane in the streets of Kathmandu with the dream of a true democracy seething within him. Rimal died in 1973.
