After trying out his hand in book and cloth trade in Calcutta, Regmi returned to Nepal just before the end of the Rana regime in February 1951.
In an interview done in August 1992 by the German anthropologist Martin Gaenszle, Regmi recalled, “These were mainly reports of the land reforms commission of 1952-53.
The award was granted to him in recognition of his "chronicling of Nepals past and present, enabling his people to discover their origins and delineating national options."
Regmi published two books in the next two years: Thatched Huts & Stucco Palaces: Peasants and Landlords in 19th Century Nepal (1978, Vikas) and Readings in Nepali Economic History (1979, Kishor Vidya Niketan).
His last book Nepal: An Historical Miscellany (2002, Adroit) is a collection of various primary and secondary texts, translated into English from the original Nepali with additional commentary.
At least ten of Regmis books are of outstanding quality and it is certain that they will continue to be the most influential texts of economic history of 18th and 19th century Nepal for at least another generation.
And then I decided to concentrate on my own writing, not just to give up the Regmi Research Series and sit quietly, playing with my grandchildren.
In the beginning of his career, Regmi's work was supported by the University of California at Berkeley through facilitation by Leo E Rose.
However Regmi continued to cherish his friendship with Rose long after this controversy and thanked him on numerous occasions in many of his books for the support given.
The 1977 Ramon Magsaysay Award, granted to Regmi near the middle of his career as a historian, also came at a crucial juncture in his life.
Although at times Regmi allowed certain historians such as Fr Ludwig F Stiller, (celebrated author of, among others, The Rise of the House of Gorkha (1973) and The Silent Cry: The People of Nepal, 1816-1839 (1976)) to make extensive use of his original document collection, it seems fair to say that Regmi was not particularly interested in reproducing his "school" of Nepali historiography.
Regmi resisted most invitations to participate in other academic forums or seminars, and he rarely contributed articles to journals other than his own.
If, therefore, the points I have made here provoke you to sit up and think on how we may be able to preserve and build on the initiative and liberality of our ancestors in using a portion of their wealth to construct and maintain temples, shrines, and other public assets in this city of ours, my efforts will not have gone waste."
Some of the obituaries published since his death have lamented the fact that the wealth of insights Regmi had produced in his research works had not been used by the Nepali state.
In the course of exploring and recording a previously unknown and uncharted aspect of the history of the Nepali people and, therefore, of mankind as a whole, I have the feeling of having left my footprints on the sands of time. "
Regmi could provide us with historical narratives of previously uncharted aspects of Nepal's past precisely because he showed no interest in the gimmickry embedded in medals and national honours.