Pride of Okhaldhunga

Born on 9 Jestha 1969 BS (21 May 1912) in Okhaldhunga, where his father Bishnu Charan, a government servant and novelist, was posted, Siddhicharan Shrestha spent his earliest years in the hills of his birthplace until the family returned to Kathmandu in 1919, when he was seven. At Durbar High School he met the Nepal Bhasa poet Siddhidas Amatya in 1926 and took him as his guru.

He began writing poems at thirteen, in both Nepali and Nepal Bhasa. After the 1990 BS earthquake he gathered its horrors in "Bhuichala", and the grief of losing his first son at four years old fills "Biswa Byatha".

In 1940 the Rana regime sentenced him to 18 years in jail over a poem that said there can be no lasting peace without revolution; he was not freed even for his father's funeral rites, and was released in 1945. Written as a tribute to the land of his birth and childhood, "Mero Pyaro Okhaldhunga" became his best-loved poem, a song for every Nepali living far from home, famously sung by Narayan Gopal.

He later edited the daily Awaj, and today Okhaldhunga's municipality and highway bear his name.

Born in Rumjatar, Okhaldhunga, Melawa Devi Gurung is known as the first female singer from Nepal. She recorded songs in Calcutta and became known for "Na Gharlai Ghar Kahincha Nari Nai Durbar Ho", and sang for Prime Minister Chandra Shumsher Rana.

She is also remembered as one of the earliest women composers in Nepali music, trained in classical and semi-classical styles — a pioneer who opened the way for every Nepali woman who followed her into music.

Pradeep Kumar Rai / Byakul Maila, the lyricist of the new national anthem "Sayaun Thunga Phoolka Hami", which was adopted after the People's Movement II (Jana Andolan II), was born in Chaitra 2029 BS in Thakle-8, Hilepani, Okhaldhunga.

Part of the core team who rescued 2 people alive stuck in Trishuli 3A in recent mud flood in Bhotekoshi and Trishuli Rivers.