Prem Gorkhi was detained by the police soon after his matriculation because of naxalite activities. Three years of police excesses and trials in courts later, he started studying privately and got a job in a Punjabi daily upon his release. From 1971 to 1978, he dabbled in journalism at Jalandhar and later moved to Chandigarh. After his first story was published in the popular Punjabi magazine, Nagmani, he made a decision to write only for and about the deprived and disadvantaged sections of society as he felt that the literary world almost ignored them.