That for long I did not know what my father did. I was ashamed of him as I thought he did not have a profession. Rummaging through Maps and Prints and going over books the whole day. It was after his death that I came to learn about his profession. It was Satyajit Ray who first pointed out to me that the Character Sidhu Jyatha is based on my father and it was latter reiterated by none other than Radha Prasad Gupta in his book Stan Kal Patra.
My father Nirmal Chandra Kumar was a Bohemian Antiquarian and champion of antiquarian research. He was also among the greatest influences on a generation of artists, from filmmaker to fiction writers, folk musician to folk artist; actors to activists, writer to wanderer; teachers to travellers -more so perhaps than any art critic or editor of his times. His home housed his well-appointed library.
Satyajit Ray, the famous filmmaker, depended on Kumar for his research on Satranj ki Khilari. Kumar had purchased a Mutiny Scrap Book from Sotheby's only for his friend.
His library bore the greatest likeness to a Heaven of Books, more remote than any other of man’s earthly constructions, with lines of vellum up into the ceiling. It’s a cloister duplicated for those who, upon arrival, are already imprisoned in the library of books.
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