said, "Well, if the government puts me in jail for six months, my memoir will be complete." We are glad to know that he wrote this memoir, but, as mentioned in the preface of the book, a reputed (I would like to say irresponsible) publisher from New Delhi lost his original manuscript (p. vii). M.P.’s courage must be highly applauded because he 390 Studies in Nepali History and Society 13(2), 2008 took great pains to rewrite his memoir, which has now been published in book form. Prior to reviewing the contents of the book, we must congratulate and thank Ganesh Raj Sharma for his painstaking efforts to produce this volume, along with his ten-page preface which includes his own analyses of one or two political issues. One, on the basis of his conversation with M.P. Sharma, which has also been entrusted with this responsibility by M.P.’s wife, as he had already produced a significant volume on the autobiography of B.P. Koirala (M.P.’s younger half brother) and on the basis of his interview with B.P. himself. In a way, Sharma has become a unique person by producing two volumes on two brothers, two Prime Ministers and two big personalities of modern Nepal. M.P.’s memoir is not complete. As the name of the book suggests, it contains M.P.’s experiences as a leader of the democratic movement against the Ranas from 1947 to 1951, along with his own family background and a critical overview of the Rana regime. A large number of documents, ninety two in total, have been attached as an appendix in part two of the book, from which we can extract a rough picture of the political history of Nepal from 1951 to 1955, especially on issues in which M.P. was involved. But for that to be useful, one must have a detailed knowledge of the events of those fateful years. Divided into nine sections, the first part of the memoir focuses on three main aspects of Nepali history. They are M.P.’s childhood and youth along with his father's exiled life in India and afterwards; the positive and negative aspects of Rana rule; and finally the democratic movement starting with the formation of the NNC (Nepali National Congress) and ending with the Delhi Compromise. M.P. admits that his father (Krishna Prasad Koirala) was very sophisticated and lavish in his habits, but later on became very austere. He would not smoke,