Prof. Dr. Murari Prasad Regmi

Gopal Parajuli's Dishaheen Aakash (The Broken Sky, 1993) is a collection of stories on various issues. Parajuli has been writing stories for more than two decades. In his stories, one can find both individualism and collectivity. His style, thoughts and presentation are new and original. Some of his stories do not have characters—not even one—while some others have hundreds of characters that stand with prominence. Theoretically, there is no rule as to how many characters can exist in a story. In other words, there is no limit to the number of characters. This means, if the storywriter wants, there can even be more than a hundred characters. So, we cannot draw a numerical limit to the number of characters. Generally, stories with the theme of entirety tend of have many characters. It's only the writer who can decide the minimum or maximum number of characters. Readers, audiences and critiques cannot have a say in that. A storywriter can make a story devoid of characters or can have many characters. He is the creator of his imaginative universe, and is entitled to whatever he thinks is right. This number can even drop to zero. Therefore, even if the number of characters crosses a thousand, no one can question the author.

Inside storywriter Parajuli, readers can find the rationality of a writer with comprehensive wholeness in his vision, a balance of an introvert personality, an equitable contemplation and a self-illuminated personality.

Prof. Dr. Murari Prasad Regmi, Critic

Garima, September-October, 1994