Nirmal Kumar was probably the first Indian bookseller to publish a rare books catalogue in the best tradition of bespoke antiquarians around the world. One can only imagine it today: a set of cosy rooms in an ancestral home on a busy street in Calcutta in the 1950s resembling a finely appointed private library with a complex of bookcases and furniture that was actually an antiquarian bookshop one could walk into for a browse and for long conversations with its bohemian-bibliophile owner. His name was Nirmal Chandra Kumar, and his bookshop was called, simply, Kumars. From 1945 until his death in 76, Kumar ran a rare bookshop from his home. It took up several rooms and the stock ranged widely, from fine bindings to prints to maps. I first learnt about Kumar and his bookshop when I stumbled upon a blog by his son, Aloke Kumar, on his father’s bookshop and its influence on the life and work of many Bengali artists and intellectuals of that time who were all regulars at Kumars. I was delighted to discover there had once been such a marvellous bookshop in India — a genuine antiquarian bookshop in a country where antiquarian bookselling and buying is not an ingrained tradition. In this sense, Kumar was no doubt a maverick and thank God for that. Eager to know more, I managed to contact his son, Professor Aloke Kumar, for a brief chat on the phone.
Read the article on the website of The Hindu