R P Gupta (1921 - 2000), or Shatul, as he was popularly known was deeply embedded in the Calcutta psyche. He presents a fascinating paradox. He was a bibliophile, a historian, a writer in both English and Bengali, a gastronome, a cineaste, a collector of paintings. A raconteur and a polymath. For several years after university, Gupta did nothing very much by way of a living. He was, in the words of a friend, a bohemian, in the true intellectual sense He spend his days endless coffee, late-night disputation, some private tutoring. The balance of his time was spent among the second-hand bookstores in the narrow lanes of old Calcutta, searching for 18th and 19th century books, prints and ephemera. It is in one of such sojourns that he met my father Nirmal Kumar in one of the College Street book shop and Kumar brought him home, which housed his library. Thus began a lifelong relation with Nirmal Kumar. Kumar encouraged him to build his own collection and he began modestly with Bengali books, which were not that expensive. R P lamented to me latter that my father had persuaded him to add to his collection the famous Elephantine Folio of Thomas & William Daniell , which he declined in spite of Kumar being agreeable to take only the cost price and that too in installments. A complete set of Daniell was last auctioned at Christie's for 2 Crore 72 Thousand Rupees. In later years his flat became a treasure house of such things. He built up a prized collection of Kalighat pats, the pictures painted as souvenirs for pilgrims to Calcutta’s Kali temple of which RP became a world authority.
Nirmal Chandra Kumar and Radha Prasad Gupta: Interactions
